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Cocoa-nut Pudding

A coconut pudding made with grated coconut, egg whites, butter, lemon juice, and coconut milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cocoa-nut Pudding

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 ↓

Cocoa-nut Pudding

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grate the coconut finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated coconut, egg whites, butter, and strained lemon juice.

  2. Add the milk from the coconut if the mixture is too thick.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baked pastry shell.

  2. Bake for a few minutes until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  3. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  4. Coconut + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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

Egg whites
Set the filling into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a softer, moister texture.
Grated coconut
Provides the main body, flavour, and moisture of the pudding.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Bake for a few minutes until set. Egg whites set when heated, but overbaking can make them tough, weepy, or rubbery. Pull the pudding once the centre just holds its shape.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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