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Dessert

Pineapple Sherbet

A chilled dessert made from pineapple, sugar, tartaric acid, water, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pineapple Sherbet

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 Sherbet

4 quarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Separate the juice from the fruit of the pineapple and chop the fruit finely.

  2. In a porcelain kettle, combine the chopped fruit with ½ pound of granulated sugar and cook for 15 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Make and freeze the sherbet

  1. Once cool, add 2 pounds of granulated sugar, ½ teaspoon of tartaric acid, and enough cold water to make 4 quarts in total.

  2. Strain the mixture and pour it into a freezer.

  3. When it is half frozen, add the well-beaten whites of 2 eggs.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Pineapple + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 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

Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and the juice that forms the body of the sherbet.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the sherbet and lowers the freezing point so it stays soft and scoopable.
Tartaric acid
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour and sharpens the sweetness.
Egg whites
Whipped into the half-frozen mixture to add air and a lighter, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites when half frozen. Whites must be well beaten and folded in while the mixture is only partly frozen. If it is too firm, the whites will not blend evenly, and if it is too liquid, they will deflate and the texture will turn out dense.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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