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Dessert

Small Cocoa-nut Puddings

A small cocoa‑nut pudding made with butter, sugar, cocoa‑nut, citron, lemon, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 batter

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the sugar and boil for 2 minutes, then let it cool.

  3. Mix in the cocoa‑nut, shredded citron, lemon rind, and beaten eggs. Add the strained lemon juice and stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered pattypans or pudding cups. Sift sugar over the top and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven 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 and give the pudding its structure as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Cocoa-nut
Adds moisture and a nutty, coconut flavour.

The step that matters

Let the sugar syrup cool before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to a hot mixture can scramble them, leaving the pudding grainy instead of smooth and set. Cooling it first keeps the eggs tender and evenly blended.

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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