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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Cheesecakes

A cheesecake made with cocoa-nuts, milk, sugar, eggs, almond macaroons, and topped with currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Cheesecakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut off the brown skin of the cocoa-nuts and grate them into a tinned or porcelain-lined pan.

  2. Add the milk from the cocoa-nuts, 1 pint of milk, and 12 oz of sugar, and stir over the heat until the cocoa-nut is tender.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool, then add 6 beaten eggs and 1 lb of crushed almond macaroons, mixing well.

  4. If the mixture is too thick, add a little cream to thin it out.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill patty-pans lined with puff pastry with the mixture and sprinkle with a few currants.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  3. Serve when cold.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Cocoa + almondtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  4. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Cocoa-nuts
Provide the grated base of the filling, giving body and a coconut flavour.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set it as it bakes, giving it a firmer, sliceable texture.
Almond macaroons
Add crumbs that thicken the filling and contribute sweetness and almond aroma.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, cooking the grated cocoa-nut until tender.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to a hot mixture can scramble them into lumps instead of blending smoothly, which leaves the filling grainy and uneven when baked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cocoa, milk, sugar, egg, almond, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cocoa, milk, sugar, egg, almond, cream. 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.

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