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Pineapple Brandy

A preserved pineapple soaked in brandy with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 298 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pineapple Brandy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare the pineapple and slice it into ¼-inch thick slices.

  2. Weigh the sliced pineapple and use an equal weight of powdered sugar.

Macerate

  1. Layer the pineapple and sugar in a large glass jar, starting and ending with sugar.

  2. Pour enough brandy into the jar to cover the pineapple by 1 inch.

  3. Seal the jar tightly and store it in a cool, dry, dark place for at least one month.

Serve

  1. Serve the fruit on the table.

  2. Mix the brandy with soda water or seltzer for a refreshing drink.

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. Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
Provides the fruit flavour and the solids that soak up and carry the brandy.
Powdered sugar
Draws juice out of the pineapple and dissolves into it, sweetening the liquid.
Brandy
Acts as the alcoholic base that extracts and preserves the pineapple flavour.

The step that matters

Layering the pineapple and sugar. Sugar must surround every slice so it can draw out juice and dissolve evenly. Sugar left in clumps or in gaps can let slices stay dry and spoil or ferment unevenly during the long rest.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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