Why it works: Apple and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 530 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Apples with Pineapple
Ingredients
Directions
Peel the pineapple, remove the eyes, and grate it.
Add the grated pineapple to the syrup for the apples, using extra sugar for the pineapple.
Quarter the apples and prepare them as you would for canning, omitting the lemon.
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.
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Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together530 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar):
- Pearfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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