Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoanut Rock Cakes

A sweet cake made with egg whites, powdered sugar, desiccated coconut, and vinegar, baked until set.

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

Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cocoanut Rock Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Whisk the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and sifted powdered sugar.

  3. Gradually fold in the desiccated coconut.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto sheets of buttered paper or form into knobs with your fingers.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

Optional colouring

  1. Optionally, color half with pink food coloring.

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.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Coconut + vinegartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together271 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

  5. Egg + coconuttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whisked to a stiff foam that gives the cakes their light structure.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Desiccated coconut
Provides the chewy texture and coconut flavor, and bulks up the mixture.
Vinegar
Adds slight acidity that helps keep the egg white foam stable.

The step that matters

Gradually fold in the desiccated coconut. Folding deflates the whisked egg whites, so adding the coconut slowly and gently keeps as much air as possible. Too much stirring collapses the foam, leaving dense, flat rock cakes.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vinegar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes