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Dessert

Cocoanut Cake Sandwich

A layered coconut cake sandwich with coconut icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cocoanut Cake Sandwich

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of the eggs, then add caster sugar, butter, milk, and flour.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and mix it with the other ingredients.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the whites of 4 eggs until stiff, then fold them into the mixture.

  4. Pour the batter into sandwich tins and bake until golden.

Ice and assemble

  1. For the icing, beat the whites of 2 eggs, then mix in 1 cup of caster sugar and the grated coconut.

  2. Spread the icing evenly on the cooled layers of cake.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and structure.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas and help the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises whipped egg whites so they hold their volume.
Coconut
Adds moisture and coconut flavour to the cake and icing.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Vigorous stirring knocks this air out, leaving a dense cake, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

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