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Sauce

Cocoa-nut Milk Sauce

A sauce made from cocoa‑nut milk, flour, cream, butter, sugar, and Madeira or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Milk Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix 2 tablespoons of flour with a small quantity of cocoa-nut milk until smooth.

  2. Stir this mixture into the remaining cocoa-nut milk.

  3. Warm 1 teacup of cream and 2 oz of butter together without boiling.

  4. Incorporate the cream and butter into the milk and flour mixture.

  5. Continue stirring over heat until the sauce thickens and becomes creamy.

  6. Sweeten with caster sugar to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, quickly stir in ⅓ cup of Madeira or sherry.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cocoa + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it cooks.
Cocoa-nut milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy mouthfeel and rich flavour.
Madeira or sherry
Adds aromatic, fortified-wine flavour to finish the sauce.

The step that matters

Continue stirring over heat until the sauce thickens. Flour starch thickens only when heated in liquid and stirred, so the sauce needs steady stirring to avoid lumps and scorching on the base of the pan. Stopping early leaves it thin, and uneven heat can cause it to catch.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, cream, butter, sugar, sherry. 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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