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Dessert

Pineapple Sherbet

A frozen dessert made from pineapple, sugar, water, lemon juice, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pineapple Sherbet

Why it works: Pineapple and lemon 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 Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix sugar with water and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Grate the pineapples and press the pulp through a sieve.

  3. Add the pineapple juice and lemon juice to the syrup.

  4. Cool the mixture, then pour it into a freezer.

Freeze and finish

  1. Turn the dasher rapidly until the mixture is almost frozen.

  2. Remove the dasher and add the beaten egg white mixed with powdered sugar.

  3. Beat well, cover, and let stand for 2 hours.

  4. If desired, use canned pineapple instead of fresh.

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 + lemontop 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. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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
Sweetens the sherbet and, with water, forms a syrup that keeps the texture smooth.
Pineapples
Provide the main fruit flavour and the pulp and juice that give the sherbet its body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour and balances the sweetness.
Egg white
Whipped into the frozen mixture to add air and a lighter, fluffier texture.

The step that matters

Turn the dasher rapidly until almost frozen. Fast stirring while the mixture chills breaks up ice crystals, keeping the sherbet smooth rather than grainy. Stopping too early leaves the base too liquid to hold air well.

Swap the pineapple

The recipe marks pineapple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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