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Pine-apple Pie

A pineapple pie with sweet cream filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pine-apple 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.

Make the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix the grated pineapple, sweet cream, butter, sugar, and egg yolks until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

Make and add the meringue

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Gradually add the fine sugar while continuing to beat until glossy.

  3. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven until lightly browned.

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 + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pineapple + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grated pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavor and moisture that the filling sets around.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set during baking, giving it a custard-like body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the filling as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep it tender as it sets.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until glossy. Whites need to form a stiff, stable foam before sugar is added gradually. Under-beaten or overmixed whites can weep or collapse, leaving a thin or watery meringue.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, 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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