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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Cakes

Cocoa-nut cakes are small, baked cakes made from eggs, sugar, and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Whisk the eggs until very light and dry.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while stirring.

  3. Stir in the grated cocoa-nut until a stiff paste forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll a tablespoon of the mixture into a pyramid shape.

  2. Place the pyramids on paper on a baking tray.

  3. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until just a little brown.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + cocoatop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together956 recipes

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

  3. Egg + cocoatop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked eggs trap air, giving the cakes a light, airy structure before baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and helps them brown slightly in the oven.
Grated cocoa-nut
Provides the bulk and coconut flavour, and with the eggs and sugar forms the stiff paste that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Baking until just a little brown. Baking in a cool oven dries the cakes gently and sets them without over-browning. Taking them out too late can scorch the sugar and make them bitter, while too little time leaves them soft and pale.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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