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Dessert

The Pineapple Cake

A pineapple filling made by simmering pineapple, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in boiling water until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

The Pineapple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix sugar, grated pineapple, cornstarch, and salt until well combined.

  2. Bring water to a boil. Add the mixture to the boiling water and stir continuously until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Let cool.

Use

  1. Use this filling in your favorite cake recipe.

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 + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Sweetens the filling and helps it thicken as it dissolves into the liquid.
Grated pineapple
Provides the fruit flavor and moisture that make up the body of the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling into a spreadable consistency when heated with liquid.

The step that matters

Stir continuously while the mixture thickens. Cornstarch can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly into a smooth filling.

“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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