Why it works: Pineapple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,841 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pineapple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Butter a pudding dish and line the bottom and sides with stale sponge cake slices.
Pare and thinly slice the pineapple.
Layer and bake
Layer the pineapple in the dish, sprinkling sugar between layers until all is used.
Pour ½ cup of water over the layers.
Cover with slices of cake dipped in cold water.
Cover the dish with a buttered plate and bake at 300°F (150°C) for two hours.
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.
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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stale sponge cake
- Soaks up the pineapple juice and softens into a moist, pudding-like layer.
- Pineapple
- Supplies moisture and acidity that soften the cake and give the pudding its fruity flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and draws out its juice as it cooks.
The step that matters
Covering the dish and baking low and slow. The buttered plate traps steam so the pineapple cooks gently and the cake stays moist. Baking at a low temperature for a long time lets the fruit soften and its flavour concentrate without the top drying out or the cake turning hard.
“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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