Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the filling
Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar, adding a little sugar at a time.
Add the grated pineapple and almond cream to the egg mixture.
Carefully fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Pineapple + almondtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together428 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the filling and whites, whipped and folded in, give the pie a light, airy structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the beaten egg yolks.
- Grated pineapple
- Provides moisture and the main fruit flavour and acidity.
- Almond cream
- Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that lifts the filling. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in, so the pie sets light instead of dense and flat.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, almond, cream, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, cream, 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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