Name: Pine-apple Sponge
Ingredients: 1 small pineapple or 1½ pint can of pineapple; 1 small cup sugar; ½ package gelatin; 1½ cups water; whites of 4 eggs

Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pine-apple Sponge

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the gelatin in ½ cup of water for 2 hours.
Chop the pineapple and place it in a saucepan with the sugar and the remaining water.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the soaked gelatin to the saucepan.

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.

Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,778 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pineapple + gelatintop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together282 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Gelatin + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).