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Pineapple Mousse

A chilled pineapple mousse made with gelatin, cream, pineapple juice, sugar, lemon juice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pineapple Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mousse

  1. Soften the gelatine in cold water for 5 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in hot pineapple juice.

  3. Add sugar and let cool.

  4. Stir in lemon juice and cream.

  5. Beat the mixture until thick.

  6. Pour into a chilled mold.

Freeze and serve

  1. Cover with wrapping paper and pack in equal measures of ice and salt for 3-4 hours.

  2. Unmold and serve with sugared pineapple slices.

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

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

  2. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + pineappletop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so the mousse holds its shape when unmolded.
Double cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the mousse a smooth, airy body when beaten.
Pineapple juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and liquid base for the mousse.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the tartness of the pineapple and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until thick. Beating whips air into the cream and mixture, and the gelatine must be dissolved and cooled first so it sets the foam rather than lumps or collapsing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pineapple, 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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