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Dessert

Cocoanut Pound Cake

A dense cake made with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cocoanut Pound Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the butter and sugar until very light.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the milk and then the beaten egg whites.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until well combined.

  6. Fold in the grated coconut.

Bake and finish

  1. Line the cake pans with well-buttered paper and fill them slightly more than half full.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Once cooled, spread a thin frosting on top and sprinkle with grated coconut.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, beaten with butter, helps create a light, aerated batter.
Eggs
Add structure and richness; the whites lift the batter as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, helping stabilise the egg whites and supporting the rise with baking soda.

The step that matters

Beat the butter and sugar until very light. Creaming butter and sugar traps air in the fat, which gives the batter volume and a light texture. Under-beating leaves a dense, heavy cake.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, cream, flour. 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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