A shallow coconut pudding baked in a puff pastry case in a pie plate, its pale golden top flecked with grated coconut and dusted with white sugar, one wedge cut and drawn a little away, showing a light, close-textured filling. — Coconut and egg-white pudding baked on puff pastry, dusted with sugar, with one wedge cut.

Cocoanut Pudding (1864)

Name: Coconut Pudding
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 2 h 20 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 tbsp all-purpose flour, for rolling; ½ lb all-butter puff pastry, thawed if frozen; ¼ lb fresh coconut meat, brown skin pared off; 7 tbsp unsalted butter, softened; ¼ lb superfine sugar; ½ tsp rose water; 1 tbsp white wine; 1 tbsp brandy; 6 large egg whites; 1 tbsp confectioners' sugar, for the top

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A cocoanut pudding of 1864: freshly grated coconut folded into butter, sugar and stiffly beaten egg whites with rose water, wine and brandy, baked on puff pastry and dusted with sugar.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 30, 2026

Recipe makes: One 9-inch pudding, 8 servings
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 50 min
Total: 2 hr 20 min

Half an hour to grate the coconut and mix, 20 minutes to bake the pastry case and 30 to bake the pudding. Moss serves it cold, so allow about an hour for it to cool before the sugar goes on.

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Coconut and egg-white pudding baked on puff pastry, dusted with sugar, with one wedge cut.

The story behind the recipe

Among the desserts in A Poetical Cook-Book, which Maria J. Moss dedicated to Philadelphia’s Sanitary Fair of June 1864, sits a coconut tart in all but name. Her Cocoanut Pudding stirs freshly grated coconut into creamed butter and sugar with stiffly beaten egg whites, flavors it with rose water, wine and brandy, and bakes it on a layer of puff pastry. Above it stands a couplet from Thomas Moore about a man who always had his finger in the best pie going.

Where did the receipt come from?

A near relative in print is Philadelphian too. Eliza Leslie’s Directions for Cookery (1837) has a Cocoa-nut Pudding made in much the same way, but larger: three-quarters of a pound of coconut and the whites of twelve eggs, with “a glass of wine and rose water mixed” and no brandy. Moss’s is a smaller pudding with less coconut to each egg. Leslie’s book was not written for the fair, and Moss names no source.

The word on Moss’s page is a surprise to a modern reader. She tells the cook to “take the thin brown skin off of a quarter pound of cocoa.” She means coconut, grated from the fresh nut. What Was in the 1864 Sanitary Fair Cookbook? sets the pudding beside the rest of her book.

Making it today

Moss grated a fresh nut, and that is still the closest match. Frozen grated unsweetened coconut, thawed and squeezed dry, is the nearest substitute. Sweetened flaked coconut is too sugary and too coarse. Moss puts unbaked puff paste straight into the dish; this version bakes the case first so the base stays crisp, our choice. Her “half glass” of wine and brandy is read here as a tablespoon of each. Squares of Lafayette Gingerbread (1864) make a darker second sweet beside it.

Take the thin brown skin off of a quarter pound of cocoa, wash it in cold water, and wipe it dry; grate it fine, stir three and half ounces of butter and a quarter pound of powdered sugar, to a cream; add half teaspoonful of rose-water, half glass of wine and of brandy mixed, to them. Beat the white of six eggs till they stand alone, and then stir them into the butter and sugar; afterwards sprinkle in the grated nut, and stir hard all the time. Put puff paste into the bottom of the dish, pour in the mixture, and bake it in a moderate oven, half an hour. Grate loaf sugar over it when cold.

[Maria J. Moss]A Poetical Cook-Book (Philadelphia: Caxton Press of C. Sherman, Son & Co., 1864), Cocoanut Pudding, p. 100

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Ingredients

For One 9-inch pudding, 8 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for One 9-inch pudding, 8 servings.

All-purpose flour, for rolling1 tbsp
All-butter puff pastry, thawed if frozen0.5 lb
Fresh coconut meat, brown skin pared off0.25 lb
Unsalted butter, softened7 tbsp
Superfine sugar0.25 lb
Rose water1/2 tsp
White wine1 tbsp
Brandy1 tbsp
Large egg whites6
Confectioners’ sugar, for the top1 tbsp

Ingredients as written here

1 tbsp all-purpose flour, for rolling
½ lb all-butter puff pastry, thawed if frozen
¼ lb fresh coconut meat, brown skin pared off
7 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
¼ lb superfine sugar
½ tsp rose water
1 tbsp white wine
1 tbsp brandy
6 large egg whites
1 tbsp confectioners’ sugar, for the top

Equipment

9-inch pie plate
Rolling pin
Parchment paper and pie weights or dried beans
Box grater or food processor
Two mixing bowls
Electric mixer or whisk
Instant-read thermometer
Wire rack

Instructions

Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Dust the work surface with the flour for rolling and roll out the puff pastry a little thinner, into a round large enough to line the pie plate. Lift it in, press it into the corners, trim the overhang and prick the base all over with a fork.
Line the pastry with parchment, fill it with pie weights and bake for 15 minutes. Lift out the paper and weights and bake 5 minutes more, until the base looks dry and pale gold. Turn the oven down to 350°F (175°C).
While the case bakes, rinse the pieces of coconut in cold water, pat them dry and grate them finely.
Beat the butter and superfine sugar together until pale and creamy, 3 to 4 minutes. Beat in the rose water, wine and brandy; the mixture may look a little curdled.
In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until they hold stiff peaks that stand up on their own.
Stir a third of the whites into the butter mixture, then the rest in two more additions. Sprinkle in the grated coconut and stir it in firmly until evenly mixed.
Pour the filling into the pastry case and level it. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the top is puffed and golden, the center no longer wobbles and an instant-read thermometer in the middle reads 160°F (71°C).
Cool the pudding on the wire rack until cold, about 1 hour. Sift the confectioners’ sugar over the top and cut it in wedges.

Nutrition

360calories per serving

Recipe makes: One 9-inch pudding, 8 servings
Servings: 8

Estimated per serving (8) from USDA FoodData Central values for raw coconut meat, butter, sugar, egg whites and puff pastry.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Fills one 9-inch pie plate. For two puddings make two pastry cases and two batches of filling; a doubled batch of whites is hard to fold evenly by hand.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

The coconut, butter, sugar, rose water and egg whites are Moss’s quantities. Reading the “half glass of wine and of brandy mixed” as 1 tablespoon of each comes from Kitchiner’s reckoning of a wine-glass as 2 fluid ounces. Moss gives only “a moderate oven, half an hour,” so the amount of pastry, the oven settings and the thermometer check come from us, as does baking the case first. Superfine sugar stands in for her powdered sugar, and confectioners’ sugar for the loaf sugar grated over the top. Keep the six leftover yolks covered in the refrigerator and use them within 2 days. Store the pudding covered in the refrigerator and eat it within 2 days. Contains eggs, gluten, dairy, coconut and alcohol.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.