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Dessert

Cheese-Cakes

A coconut cake made with grated coconut, sugar, milk or water, eggs, and lemon rind, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and milk work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

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 filling

  1. Soak the coconut in cold water, then pare off the dark skin and grate it.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the grated coconut, pounded sugar, and milk or water.

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

  4. Once cooled, beat in the whisked and strained eggs and lemon rind.

Bake

  1. Line patty pans with pastry.

  2. Fill the pans with the mixture.

  3. 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. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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 mixture and set when baked, giving the cakes structure.
Grated coconut
Provides the main body, flavour and chewy texture of the filling.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it become tender and glossy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the coconut over low heat. Cooking gently over low heat lets the coconut soften evenly and absorb the sugar and liquid without scorching. Too much heat can burn the sugar and make the filling sticky or dark.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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.

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