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Dessert

Pineapple Sherbet

A frozen dessert made from grated pineapple, milk, sugar, lemon juice, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pineapple Sherbet

Why it works: Pineapple and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 885 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Pineapple Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Grate the pineapple and mix it with the milk and sugar.

  2. Add the lemon juice and the beaten egg whites.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture until solid.

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 + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rich body to the frozen dessert.
Egg whites
Whipped foam traps air, giving the sherbet a lighter, less icy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and lowers the freezing point, keeping it softer when frozen.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten to a foam and folded in gently so the air bubbles survive. Deflated whites make a denser, icier sherbet once frozen.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, lemon, 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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