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Dessert

Pineapple Cake

A layered cake made with orange cake layers, pineapple filling, and almond‑flavored icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,664 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cake

  1. Prepare the cake using the orange cake recipe and bake in three layers.

Make the icing

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Grate fresh pineapple to measure ¾ cup and strain it.

  3. Add the pineapple juice to the egg whites and sugar mixture.

  4. Divide the mixture; fold the strained pineapple into one part for the filling.

  5. In the other part, beat in ½ cup of sugar and ½ teaspoon of almond extract.

Assemble and ice

  1. Icing the top and sides of the cake with the almond mixture while the cake is still hot.

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. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pineapple + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the icing its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites, adding sweetness and body to the icing.
Fresh pineapple
Adds moisture and tart fruit flavor to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the beaten portion of the icing.

The step that matters

Icing the cake while it is still hot. Warm cake releases steam and crumbs easily, and a whipped meringue-style icing can weep or slide off a warm surface. Letting the layers cool first helps the icing hold its shape and stay smooth.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, egg, sugar, almond. 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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