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Pine-apple Sherbet

A chilled pineapple dessert made with pineapple, boiling water, lemon juice, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pine-apple Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Cut off the dark spots from the pineapple slices and chop them very fine.

  2. Pour 2 quarts of boiling water over the chopped pineapple and strain in the juice.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the juice of 4 lemons and 5 cups of white sugar.

  2. Just before freezing, beat in the 6 egg whites until stiff froth forms.

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. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 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. Pineapple + sugartop 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).

Lemon and sugar 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

Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavor and liquid that freezes into the sherbet's body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavor and balances the sugar.
White sugar
Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point, keeping the sherbet softer.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that traps air, making the frozen sherbet lighter.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff froth. Whites must be whipped to a stiff, glossy foam before folding in, since the air they hold gives lightness. Overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy, and whites beaten too early can deflate before freezing.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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