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Dessert

Pineapple Water Ice

A chilled pineapple dessert made with pineapple pulp, water, sugar, egg white, lemon juice, and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Pare the pineapples and remove any specks.

  2. Grate the flesh on a coarse grater and press the pulp through a colander.

  3. Add ½ cup of water and 8 ounces of sugar to the pulp.

Make the ice

  1. Beat the egg white to a firm froth and gradually mix it into the pulp mixture, beating for a few minutes.

  2. Freeze the mixture using your preferred method.

  3. Alternatively, pound ½ pound of ripe pineapple flesh in a mortar.

  4. Mix in the strained juice of a lemon, 1 pint of syrup, and ½ cup of water.

  5. Strain through a napkin and freeze using your preferred method.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  5. Pineapple + syruptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Egg white
Whipped to a firm froth, it adds lightness and a smoother, airy texture to the ice.
Sugar
Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point, keeping it softer when frozen.
Pineapple flesh
Provides the main flavor and most of the liquid that freezes into the ice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white into the pulp. The egg white must be whipped to a firm froth and mixed in gradually. If it is poorly whipped or dumped in all at once, it will not incorporate evenly, and the ice may freeze with a denser, less airy texture.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

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