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Dessert

Pineapple Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sponge cake, diced pineapple, and a custard of egg yolks and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Pineapple Pudding

Why it works: Pineapple and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 885 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Pineapple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Cut the sponge cake into pieces.

  2. Layer the sponge cake and diced pineapple in a mold, alternating until full.

Custard and steam

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and milk to make a custard.

  2. Pour the custard over the layered mixture.

  3. Steam the mold for 2 hours without covering it.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it steams.
Pineapple
Adds moisture, sweetness and a bright acidity that cuts the richness of the custard.
Egg yolks
Coagulate with gentle heat to set the custard and add richness and a smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving softness and helping it set evenly.

The step that matters

Steaming the custard gently. Egg yolk proteins set into a smooth custard at moderate heat. Steam that is too vigorous can make the custard porous or pockmarked, so keep the steam steady and even.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk. 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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