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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Pudding

A baked pudding made from grated cocoa nut, sugar, lemon peel, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cocoa-nut Pudding

Why it works: Cocoa and milk work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Break the shell of the cocoa nut carefully to keep it whole.

  2. Remove the brown skin and grate the nut.

  3. In a bowl, mix the grated cocoa nut with powdered sugar and grated lemon peel.

  4. Add enough milk to create a smooth mixture.

Bake

  1. Line a tin with pastry and pour the mixture in.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set but not too brown.

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. Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cocoa + lemontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Cocoa nut
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pudding its main flavour and body.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the filling.
Milk
Moistens the grated nut and turns the mixture into a smooth, pourable filling.

The step that matters

Bake until just set, not browned. Milk and egg-free fillings set through gentle heat; over-baking at high heat can toughen the texture and brown the surface too far, so the pudding should be removed once it has firmed.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Milletfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, milk. 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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