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Dessert

Cocoanut Puff Balls

A sweet puff ball made from butter, corn starch, eggs, sugar, and coconut, baked and coated in syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cocoanut Puff Balls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Bake the puffs

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Melt the butter and mix with corn starch, whole eggs, and egg whites.

  3. Shape the mixture into small, light puffs and bake until dry and hollow.

Make the syrup

  1. Prepare a syrup by boiling ½ cup of water with 1 pound of sugar without stirring.

Coat and dry

  1. Roll the baked puffs in thick sugar syrup, then in a mixture of grated cocoanut and granulated sugar.

  2. Dry the puffs in a warm place before serving.

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 + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the puffs a tender, flavourful crumb.
Corn starch
Provides structure and a light, delicate texture as the puffs set in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the puffs rise and set into hollow shells.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help trap air, so the puffs bake up airy and hollow.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as a syrup, forms a crisp, glossy coating on the puffs.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup without stirring. Stirring hot sugar syrup can trigger crystallization, making the coating grainy instead of smooth and glassy. Letting it boil undisturbed keeps the sugar dissolved and the coating even.

“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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