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Dessert

Cocoanut Fondants

A sweet treat made from egg white, icing sugar, grated coconut, and almond extract, shaped and dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Cocoanut Fondants

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the icing sugar and egg white in a bowl until well combined.

  2. Add the grated coconut and a little water to achieve a mixable consistency.

  3. Stir in the almond extract, and if desired, color half of the mixture with cochineal.

Shape and coat

  1. Take small pieces of the mixture and shape them into desired forms.

  2. Roll the shaped pieces in additional grated coconut and allow them to dry.

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 + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Icing sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk that gives the fondant its solid, shapeable body.
Egg white
Binds the sugar into a cohesive paste that holds its shape when formed.
Grated coconut
Adds chewy texture and coconut flavor to the mixture and the outer coating.

The step that matters

Adding water a little at a time. Icing sugar absorbs liquid quickly, so too much water makes the mixture sticky and hard to shape, while too little leaves it crumbly. Adding it gradually lets you reach a firm, pliable consistency.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

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