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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Cake

A cake made with butter, powdered sugar, sweet milk, flour, eggs, baking powder, topped with grated cocoa-nut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cocoa-nut Cake

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 Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the butter and powdered sugar together until smooth and creamy.

  3. Add the egg yolks and beat well.

  4. Stir in the flour, egg whites, and baking powder, then beat lightly.

  5. Pour the batter into three medium-sized cake pans.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

  2. Spread icing on each layer.

  3. Sprinkle grated cocoa-nut generously on top.

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. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, with the whites helping the batter rise and set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it beat up smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour, egg whites, and baking powder, then beat lightly. Overbeating after the flour goes in develops gluten, which makes the cake tough and dense. Beat only until combined so the baking powder's rising power gives a light crumb.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

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