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Pineapple Pie

A baked pineapple pie with a biscuit crust and egg custard filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 368 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Pineapple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Roll the soda biscuits finely.

  2. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

Make the filling

  1. Add sugar and nutmeg to the beaten eggs and mix well.

  2. Incorporate the grated pineapple and soaked biscuits into the egg mixture, adding a little cold water if needed.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Biscuit + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  2. Pineapple + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Pineapple + biscuittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Biscuit + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Set the filling into a custard-like texture as they cook.
Pineapple
Adds moisture, sweetness and fruity acidity to the filling.
Soda biscuits
Crushed biscuits soak up liquid and give the filling body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the pineapple.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set with heat, so the pie must be baked until the centre firms. Fresh pineapple contains enzymes that can stop eggs from setting, so the filling may stay loose if underbaked.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, egg, sugar, nutmeg. 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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