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Dessert

Cocoanut Puffs

A sweet puff made from beaten egg whites, sugar, cornstarch, shredded coconut, and vanilla, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Puffs

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.

Make the base

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Slowly add the sugar and cornstarch while continuing to beat.

  3. Place the mixture in a double boiler and cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the shredded coconut and vanilla extract.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop teaspoonfuls onto buttered baking sheets.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden 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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the puffs their light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cooked mixture so the puffs hold their shape while baking.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewy texture and coconut flavor to the puffs.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture in the double boiler. Stirring constantly over gentle heat keeps the egg whites from scrambling and lets the cornstarch thicken evenly, so the mixture becomes stiff enough to hold its shape when dropped onto the sheets.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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