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Ices, Creams, Etc

A coconut and walnut ice cream made with a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 606 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Ices, Creams, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the English walnuts and combine with shredded coconut in a bowl.

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water; bring to a boil and cook until thick.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the hot syrup over the coconut and walnuts.

  2. Let it cool and serve cold.

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. Coconut + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

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

  3. Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the water to form a syrup that coats and sweetens the coconut and walnuts.
Shredded coconut
Provides bulk, chewy texture and coconut flavor in the finished mixture.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup until thick. Sugar syrup thickens as water evaporates and concentrates the sugar. Cook it too little and the mixture stays loose; cook it too far and it hardens as it cools.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Macadamia nutfits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, 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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