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Dessert

Pineapple Sherbet

A chilled pineapple dessert made with boiled water, pineapple, lemon juice, sugar, egg whites, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pineapple Sherbet

Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Pour boiling water over the sliced pineapple and steep for 1 hour, then strain.

  2. Add lemon juice and sugar to the strained pineapple.

  3. Place the mixture in a freezer.

Fold and freeze

  1. When partly frozen, whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, gradually adding powdered sugar.

  2. Slowly stir the whipped egg whites into the mixture and freeze for 2 hours.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Pineapple
Supplies the main fruit flavour and juice for the sherbet.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and sharpens the fruit flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and keeps the frozen texture softer by lowering the freezing point.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add air and a light, fluffy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the whipped egg whites into the mixture. Whipped whites hold air only while they are stiff. Stirring them in slowly keeps the air trapped, so the sherbet freezes light instead of dense and watery.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, egg. 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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