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Dessert

Fruit Dessert

A fruit salad served in a pineapple shell, mixed with pineapple, grapefruit, grapes, cherries, and liqueurs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and grape match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 709 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Fruit Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut off the top of the pineapple, leaving the pineapple intact.

  2. Scoop out the inside of the pineapple to create a shell.

  3. Shred the scooped-out pineapple from the core.

  4. Cut the grapefruit in half and scoop out the pulp.

  5. Seed the white grapes.

  6. Mix the shredded pineapple, grapefruit pulp, and white grapes; sweeten to taste.

Add the liquors and serve

  1. Add the Maraschino cherries, Maraschino liquor, sherry wine, and brandy to the fruit mixture.

  2. Fill the pineapple shell with the fruit mixture and cover tightly.

  3. Place in a cool place until ready to serve.

  4. Before serving, tie a pretty bow of pink ribbon around the pineapple.

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 + grapetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Pineapple + grapefruittop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Pineapple + sherrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Grapefruit + grapetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-p-menthene-8-thiol (grapefruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple
Forms the edible shell and adds the main fruit flavour and juicy body.
White grapes
Add sweetness and juiciness to the fruit filling.
Grapefruit
Adds tart acidity that balances the sweetness of the fruit.
Sherry wine
Adds a nutty, aromatic depth to the fruit mixture.
Maraschino liquor
Contributes a sweet, cherry-like aroma that flavours the fruit.

Swap the grapefruit

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, grape, sherry, wine, brandy, sugar):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Grapefruitthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, grape, sherry, wine, brandy, 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.

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