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Preserve

Small Cocoa-nut Puddings

A small pudding made with butter, powdered sugar, grated coconut, citron, lemon rind, eggs, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Small Cocoa-nut Puddings

Why it works: Butter and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 548 recipes. Both carry delta-undecalactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Small Cocoa-nut Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter and powdered sugar together over low heat.

  2. Boil the mixture for 2 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture out and let it cool.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix in the grated cocoa-nut, shredded citron, lemon rind, and eggs, then beat the mixture well.

  2. Add the strained lemon juice.

  3. Pour the mixture into buttered patty pans or pudding cups.

  4. Sprinkle sugar on top.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + cocoatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 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
Set the custard structure and give the pudding a firm, tender body when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the pudding.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the base and dissolves easily into the melted butter for a smooth mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the pudding.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a hot butter and sugar mixture can scramble or cook unevenly instead of blending smoothly into the batter.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, lemon, 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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