Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Pineapple Pir
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the filling
Cream the butter and sugar together until light.
Add the egg yolks and mix well.
Stir in the grated pineapple and cream.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.
Bake until set and golden, then let cool before serving.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Pineapple + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,134 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pineapple
- Adds moisture, sweetness and acidity, and the fruit forms the body of the filling.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps creaming trap air in the butter.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks enrich and bind the filling, and whipped whites add lift and help it set.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, giving the filling a softer, smoother texture.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stir gently with a spatula so the air in the whites is kept. Overmixing deflates them, which leaves the pie denser and less light.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, 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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