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 Made As Jelly Cake
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
Sift together the flour and baking powder.
Gradually add the sifted flour and baking powder to the butter mixture.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.
Bake the layers
Pour the batter into jelly cake pans.
Bake until golden brown.
Make and spread the filling
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Mix in the desiccated coconut and powdered sugar.
Spread the filling between the layers of cake.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,648 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,467 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay moist.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure that holds the cake together.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lift and an airy, light structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.
- Desiccated coconut
- Adds coconut flavour and a chewy texture to the filling.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Stirring them in roughly or overmixing knocks that air out, so the cake bakes up dense. Fold gently with a spatula, cutting through and turning the batter over until just combined.
Swap the coconut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, 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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