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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Cheese-cakes

A baked dessert made from grated cocoa-nut, sugar, milk, eggs, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cocoa-nut Cheese-cakes

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

  1. Break the shell of the cocoa-nut carefully to keep the liquid inside.

  2. Remove the kernel, peel off the dark skin, and grate the nut.

  3. Line tart pans with fine paste.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the grated nut, sugar, and milk or water.

  2. Stir gently over low heat until tender, about 1 hour.

  3. Let it cool slightly, then mix in the whisked and strained eggs and lemon rind.

Bake

  1. Fill the lined pans with the mixture.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 13 to 15 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Cocoa + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cocoa-nut
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the cheese cakes their flavour and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it turn tender and glossy as it cooks.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the filling structure and holding it together.
Milk from the nut or water
Adds moisture so the nut softens and cooks into a tender mixture.

The step that matters

Stir gently over low heat until tender. Cooking the nut slowly over low heat softens it without scorching the sugar and milk. High heat can burn the sugar and make the filling stick and darken before the nut is tender.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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