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Cocoanut Ice

A chilled coconut dessert made by boiling milk and sugar, adding desiccated coconut, and setting in a tin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Cocoanut Ice

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 ↓

Cocoanut Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine sugar and milk in a saucepan and boil for 3 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in desiccated coconut until well mixed.

Set and colour

  1. Line a tin with greaseproof paper and pour the mixture into it.

  2. If desired, take half of the mixture and color it pink by adding a few drops of cochineal.

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. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Coconut + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Desiccated coconut
Forms the bulk of the candy and gives it its chewy, firm texture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the candy and, once boiled with milk, helps it set firm when cooled.
Milk
Dissolves the sugar and binds the coconut into a moist, cohesive mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar and milk for 3 minutes. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and concentrates the mixture so it sets firm rather than soft. Too short a boil can leave the candy sticky or crumbly once cooled.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar. 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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