Name: Cocoa Nut Pudding
Ingredients: 1 fine coconut; equal weight of finely sifted sugar; milk from the coconut

Why it works: Coconut and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoa Nut Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

1 fine coconut
equal weight of finely sifted sugar
milk from the coconut

Directions

Prepare

Grate the coconut very finely.
Mix the grated coconut with an equal weight of finely sifted sugar.
Add the milk from the coconut to the mixture.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.
Let cool before serving.

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.

Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,648 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,742 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Coconut: Provides the bulk of the pudding and its coconut flavour and fine texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps it set as it bakes.
Coconut milk: Adds moisture and richness so the pudding bakes soft and set.