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Dessert

Cocoanut Cream Candy

A sweet candy made from sugar, butter, milk, coconut, and vanilla, cooked until thick and poured into a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cocoanut Cream Candy

Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Cream Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Melt butter in a granite saucepan.

  2. Add sugar and milk, stirring until sugar dissolves.

  3. Heat to boiling point and boil for twelve minutes.

Finish and set

  1. Remove from heat, add coconut and vanilla, and beat until creamy.

  2. Pour into a buttered pan, cool slightly, and mark in squares.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Dissolves and cooks into the candy, providing sweetness and the firm body once it boils.
Milk
Adds liquid and milk solids that give the candy a creamy, softer texture.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the candy smoother and richer in mouthfeel.
Shredded coconut
Adds coconut flavour and chewy texture to the creamy mixture.

The step that matters

Beating after removing from heat. Beating the boiled mixture while it cools causes sugar to crystallise into fine crystals, which gives the creamy texture. Beating too early or too late changes how the candy sets.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, vanilla. 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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