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Pineapple Punch

A chilled fruit punch made with sugar, water, lemon juice, grated pineapple, ice, and plain or Apollonaris water.

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

Why it works: Lemon and pineapple 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 Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar and water until it ropes.

  2. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and grated pineapples.

Rest

  1. Let the mixture sit overnight.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, pour into a punch bowl.

  2. Add a block of ice and dilute with plain or Apollonaris water.

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. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Sugar
Dissolves in the boiling water to form a sweet syrup that gives the punch body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup and brightens the flavor.
Grated pineapples
Provide the main fruit flavor and aroma as they steep overnight in the syrup.
Block of ice
Chills the punch and dilutes it as it melts.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar and water until it ropes. Boiling until the syrup forms threads concentrates the sugar enough to make a stable base. Stopping too early leaves a thin syrup, and boiling too long can make it thick and prone to crystallizing.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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