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Dessert

Pineapple Cake

A layered cake with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, vanilla, milk, pineapple, and boiled icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until very light.

  2. Add eggs two at a time, beating for 5 minutes between each addition.

  3. Add the milk and flour alternately, adding the baking powder to the last portion of flour.

  4. Stir in the vanilla.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in layer pans at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Once cooled, layer the cake with boiled icing and top each layer with pineapple.

  3. Sprinkle powdered sugar over 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. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a tender, fine-grained crumb.
Sugar
Creams with butter for lightness and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the layers rise in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour hydrates into a batter.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and flour alternately. Alternating keeps the batter emulsified and limits gluten development, so the cake stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, flour, vanilla, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, vanilla, butter. 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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