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Dessert

Cocoanut Cookies

A sweet cookie made with butter, sugar, egg, baking soda, cream of tartar, milk, and shredded coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cocoanut Cookies

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, cream of tartar, and milk.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, mixing until combined.

  6. Fold in the shredded coconut.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the cookies.
Sugar
Creams with butter for a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the cookies lift and rise.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewy texture, moisture, and toasty flavour to the cookies.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy works air into the fat, which helps the cookies rise and keeps them tender. Under-creaming leaves a dense cookie.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

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