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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Cream

A custard-like dessert made with cream, milk, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, and grated cocoa-nut, then strained and frozen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream and milk.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon rind, then beat in the eggs.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened like custard.

Finish and freeze

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the grated cocoa-nut.

  2. Strain the mixture thoroughly and freeze quickly.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + cocoatop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook and give the cream a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Provides fat and richness, giving the frozen dessert a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.
Cocoa-nut
Adds flavor and a fine grated texture to the finished cream.

The step that matters

Cook the custard with constant stirring. Eggs thicken when heated gently, but if the heat is too high or stirring stops, they can curdle and turn grainy. Stirring constantly and cooking only until the custard thickens keeps the mixture smooth.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, lemon, 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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