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Dessert

Small Cocoa-nut Puddings

A baked pudding made from butter, sugar, cocoa-nut, citron, lemon, and eggs.

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 and powdered sugar together over low heat until boiling for 2 minutes, then let cool.

  2. Mix in the grated cocoa-nut, shredded citron, lemon rind, and beaten eggs.

  3. Add the strained lemon juice and stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered pattypans or pudding cups, then sift sugar over the top.

  2. Bake in a preheated 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
Bind the mixture and set it into a tender, custard-like texture when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and dissolves smoothly into the melted butter.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds coconut flavour and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Let the butter and sugar cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, even set after baking.

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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