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Dessert

Pineapple and Guava Pudding

A pudding made from grated pineapple, guava jelly, cornstarch, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and guava share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20 recipes. Both carry mesifurane, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Pineapple and Guava Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the grated pineapple and guava jelly very slowly for 20 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little cold water and add it to the mixture, stirring until clear.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, mix the fruit with whipped cream.

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. Pineapple + guavatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: mesifurane (caramel, sweet).

  2. Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

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

  3. Guava + creamtop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated pineapple
Provides the fruit base and bright, acidic flavour of the pudding.
Guava jelly
Adds sweetness and guava aroma, and its pectin helps the mixture thicken when boiled.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiled fruit mixture into a smooth, glossy body as it heats.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when folded into the fruit.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch slurry. Cornstarch must be dissolved in cold water first so it does not clump, then stirred in while the mixture is hot so it thickens evenly and turns clear.

Swap the guava

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Guavathe original

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

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