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Pineapple and Cream Cheese Ball

"This is a simple, fast, and easy holiday cheese ball recipe. It will remind you of your childhood if you are of a vintage age. If you loved the taste of Kraft® pineapple cheese spread on a Ritz® cracker this will really bring back comfort food memories. Makes a great potluck dish for parties. This is a big favorite at the holidays. I like to serve this with Chicken in a Biscuit® type of cracker, but your favorite crackers will do very nicely."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream cheese and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 250 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

The recipe

1 cheese ball
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Let the cream cheese sit at room temperature until soft, then beat it in a bowl until smooth.

  2. Press the crushed pineapple between paper towels or in a sieve to remove as much liquid as possible, then stir it into the cream cheese until evenly mixed.

  3. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the mixture for at least 1 hour, until firm enough to shape.

  4. Finely chop the walnut pieces and the fresh parsley, and spread them out on a plate.

  5. Scoop the chilled mixture out and shape it into a ball with your hands, pressing it firmly so it holds its shape.

  6. Roll the cheese ball in the walnut and parsley mixture until the outside is evenly coated.

  7. Refrigerate the cheese ball until ready to serve, and keep it chilled until serving time.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cream cheese + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together250 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cream cheese + walnuttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Walnut + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Pineapple + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Pineapple + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, pineapple, walnut):

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  3. Mintbetter flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, pineapple, walnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).