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Dessert

Pineapple Glace

A chilled pineapple gelatin dessert made with gelatine, pineapple juice, cream, egg whites, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pineapple Glace

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in the juice of the pineapple for 2 hours.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff and set aside.

  3. Beat the egg whites until frothy, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

Combine and set

  1. Chop the pineapple into ½-inch cubes and stir into the soaked gelatine.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and sugar to the gelatine mixture.

  3. Gently fold in the whipped cream, being careful not to disturb the pineapple pieces.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a wobbly, sliceable gel as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they add lightness and airy structure to the gelée.
Cream
Whipped into stiff peaks, it adds richness and a soft, creamy texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whipped cream. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air in the whipped cream and egg whites, so the gelée stays light. Overmixing deflates the foam and makes the dessert dense.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar. 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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