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Dessert

Pineapple Mousse

A chilled dessert made from pineapple puree, sugar, brandy, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Pare and cut three-fourths of the pineapple.

  2. Pound the pineapple very fine in a chopping bowl.

  3. Pass the pineapple through a sieve.

Make the mousse

  1. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form.

  2. Add the sugar and brandy to the pineapple puree.

  3. Fold in the whipped cream gently.

  4. Place the mixture in a freezer and freeze until set.

Serve

  1. Garnish with the remaining pineapple before serving.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Heavy cream
Whipped into stiff peaks, it traps air and gives the mousse its light, airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pineapple and softens the icy texture as the mousse freezes.
Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavor and, as a puree, the body of the mousse.
Brandy
Adds aroma and depth of flavor to the pineapple base.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream gently. Whipped cream is a foam of trapped air. Vigorous stirring deflates it, leaving a dense mousse instead of a light, airy one.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, cream. 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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