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Apple and Pineapple Pie

A pie with apples and pineapple topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Apple and Pineapple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. 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 the pie

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a deep pie plate with the pie crust.

  3. In a bowl, mix chopped apples with ½ cup sugar, salt, and flour. Dot the apple mixture with bits of butter.

  4. Bake until the apples are soft, about 30-40 minutes.

Make the pineapple layer

  1. In a saucepan, simmer grated pineapple until tender. Add ¼ cup sugar and lemon juice to the pineapple, stirring well.

  2. Spread the hot pineapple mixture over the baked apples.

Top with meringue and brown

  1. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pineapple layer. Brown in the oven.

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. Apple + pineappletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Apples
Provide the main fruit body, softening during baking to form the pie's filling.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets into a light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and the pineapple layer, and helps the meringue hold its structure.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the apples so the filling holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the apple filling as it melts during baking.
Pineapple
Adds tangy, tropical flavour as a second fruit layer beneath the meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to soft peaks before adding powdered sugar. Egg whites whipped to soft peaks trap air and form a stable foam; over-beating or adding sugar too early can make the meringue weep or stay flat, and it must be spread over the hot pineapple layer before browning.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, flour, butter, pineapple, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, flour, butter, pineapple, egg. 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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