Why it works: Sugar and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,841 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pineapple Syrup Without Benzoate
Ingredients
Directions
Combine 14 pounds of sugar with 1 gallon of pineapple juice.
Cook the mixture until it reaches 28 on the Beaume's saccharometer.
Use any waste syrup from pineapple preserves in the syrup.
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.
-
Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and body, and its concentration sets the syrup's thickness and keeping quality.
- Pineapple juice
- Supplies the liquid base and the fruit flavor and acidity of the syrup.
The step that matters
Cook the mixture to 28 Beaume. The reading on the saccharometer shows how much sugar is dissolved in the juice. Stopping early leaves a thin syrup that keeps poorly, while cooking too far makes it thick and prone to crystallizing as it cools.
“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.
You might also like
Pineapple Sherbet116 recipes
Pineapple Pudding72 recipes
Pineapple Cream58 recipes
Pineapple Jelly39 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.