Skip to main content
Dessert

Cocoa-nut Cheese-cakes

A coconut-based cheesecake made with grated coconut, sugar, water or coconut milk, eggs, lemon rind, baked in pattypans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coconut and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,233 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Cheese-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the coconut

  1. Carefully break the coconut shell and remove the liquid inside.

  2. Remove the dark skin from the kernel and grate it finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the grated nut, sugar, and water or coconut milk.

  2. Stir gently over low heat until tender, about 1 hour.

  3. Let it cool slightly, then mix in the whisked eggs and lemon rind.

Bake

  1. Line pattypans with pastry, fill with the mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 13 to 15 minutes.

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. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Coconut + cocoatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and set it into a custard-like texture when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it turn tender and glossy as it cooks.
Grated coconut
Provides the main body, moisture and coconut flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat until tender. Cooking the coconut gently keeps the sugar from scorching and lets the moisture soften the grated nut evenly; high heat can burn the sugar and leave the filling dry or uneven.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, sugar, egg, lemon. 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

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes