Skip to main content
Dessert

Ambrosia

A chilled fruit and coconut salad with whipped cream and marshmallows.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coconut and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 651 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ambrosia

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine shredded coconut, orange segments, pineapple chunks, and marshmallows.

  2. In a separate bowl, whip the heavy cream with sugar until soft peaks form.

Combine and chill

  1. Gently fold the whipped cream into the fruit mixture until well combined.

  2. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

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. Coconut + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together651 recipes

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

  2. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Coconut + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Coconut + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,223 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Whipped into a light, airy base that gives the salad a creamy, soft texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the whipped cream and helps it hold its soft peaks.
Miniature marshmallows
Add chewy sweetness and soften slightly as the salad chills.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewy texture and a mild, sweet tropical flavor.

The step that matters

Gently fold the whipped cream into the fruit mixture. Overmixing deflates the air trapped in the whipped cream, making the salad dense and heavy instead of light and fluffy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, pineapple, cream, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesPineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes