Skip to main content
Bread

Cocoa-Nut Bread

A simple bread made with Graham flour and grated coconut, optionally sweetened with coconut milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cocoa-Nut Bread

Why it works: Cocoa and milk work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cocoa-Nut Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the coconut

  1. Peel the brown outer portion of the coconut and grate the remaining part as finely as possible.

  2. Mix the grated coconut with the Graham flour and knead thoroughly.

  3. If using coconut milk, save it for later.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold the dough into rolls or biscuits, prick them well, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until fully done.

Soaking method

  1. For a safer method, soak the grated coconut in 1 pint of cold water for at least 1 hour.

  2. Warm the mixture to just below boiling in a kettle, then bring it almost to a boil, removing it just before bubbling.

  3. Let it cool, strain out the coconut, and use the water for mixing the dough, adding coconut milk if sweet.

  4. Use enough flour to achieve the proper consistency.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cocoatop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Provides the main structure of the dough and absorbs the liquid to form a workable dough.
Grated coconut
Adds moisture, flavour and fat to the dough, giving a tender crumb.
Coconut milk
Adds richness, fat and sweetness to the dough when used.

The step that matters

Warming the soaking water. Heating the water just below boiling extracts flavour and body from the coconut without scorching it. Bringing it to a rolling boil could change its character, so it should be removed just before bubbling.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Milletfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More coconut bread recipes

Pudding 5 See all 13 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes