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Pineapple Mousse

A chilled pineapple mousse made with pineapple, sugar, gelatin, egg yolks, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Pineapple Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hydrate the gelatin in ¼ cup cold water.

  2. Scald the pineapple.

Make the mousse base

  1. Make a syrup by cooking sugar and ½ cup cold water until it reaches a hair-like consistency.

  2. Beat the egg yolks, then cool the syrup slightly.

  3. Add the dissolved gelatin to the syrup, then pour the syrup over the yolks and beat well.

  4. Fold in the scalded pineapple and whipped cream when the mixture is cool.

Chill

  1. Pack the mixture in ice and salt to chill.

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

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

  2. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Gelatine
Sets the mousse so it holds its shape when chilled.
Egg yolks
Enriches the base and adds richness and body to the mousse.
Cream
Whipped in, it adds airiness and a light, creamy texture.
Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and some tartness to the mousse.
Sugar
Sweetens the mousse and helps form the syrup base.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatine to the hot syrup. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and the syrup cooled slightly before folding in cream. If it is too hot, the cream deflates; if it sets early, the mousse becomes lumpy and grainy.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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