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Dessert

Cocoanut and Apple Pudding

A baked pudding of coconut, apples, milk, butter, eggs, and apricot jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoanut and Apple Pudding

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.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then place them whole in a pie dish.

  2. Put a little apricot jam in each apple.

Make the coconut topping

  1. Boil the milk and butter together, then sweeten to taste.

  2. Pour the hot milk and butter mixture over the coconut.

  3. Add the yolks and stir the mixture.

  4. Spread the coconut mixture over the apples and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

Finish and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Place the beaten egg whites over the pudding.

  3. Bake again at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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. Apricot + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Coconut + apricottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Form the whole-fruit base that softens under the baked custard topping.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and help set the coconut mixture; beaten whites add lightness to the top.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the coconut mixture a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks into the coconut and sets with the eggs as it bakes.
Desiccated coconut
Gives the pudding its main flavour and a chewy, absorbent texture once soaked.
Apricot jam
Adds fruity sweetness that melts into the apples during baking.

The step that matters

Baking the egg whites until set. Egg whites need to be whipped to stiff peaks and then baked gently; overheating can toughen them or make them weep, so the second bake should be watched until the topping is just set.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, apricot, sugar, apple. 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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