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Mixture for Cocoanut Tartlets

A baked coconut tartlet filled with jam and lined with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mixture for Cocoanut Tartlets

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 mixture

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg white until frothy.

  3. Add the sugar and shredded coconut to the egg white and mix well.

Fill the cases

  1. Line patty pans with pastry and place a little jam in the bottom of each.

  2. Spoon the coconut mixture into each tartlet.

  3. Place a strip of paper across each tartlet.

Bake

  1. Bake in the oven until fully cooked.

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

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

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

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

  3. Coconut + eggtop 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

Shredded coconut
Provides the main bulk and chewy texture of the filling.
Superfine sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the coconut mixture brown as it bakes.
Egg white
Whipped to frothy, it adds air and helps bind the filling so it sets.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour beneath the coconut filling.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until frothy. Whipping air into the egg white gives the filling lift and helps it set lightly. If it is under-beaten, the mixture stays dense and heavy after baking.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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