Skip to main content
Dessert

To Preserve Pineapples

A method for preserving pineapples by layering with sugar and repeatedly boiling syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and pineapple 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 ↓

To Preserve Pineapples

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate

  1. Slice the pineapple and layer it with sugar in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture sit overnight.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the syrup made from the sugar and pineapple for about three minutes.

  2. Remove the pineapple slices and place them on a dish.

  3. Boil the syrup again and pour it hot over the pineapple.

  4. Let the pineapple sit until the next day.

  5. Repeat boiling the syrup and pouring it over the pineapple daily until the syrup is transparent.

Store

  1. Store in small containers, ensuring they are completely sealed from air.

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. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Draws water out of the pineapple and forms a thick syrup that preserves the fruit.
Pineapple
Provides the fruit that is softened and infused with syrup during preserving.

The step that matters

Repeated daily syrup boiling. Sugar concentration must rise gradually through repeated boiling and pouring. Each boil drives off water and strengthens the syrup, and the pineapple becomes preserved only once the syrup is fully concentrated and transparent.

“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.

You might also like

Pineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesPineapple CreamPineapple Cream58 recipesPineapple JellyPineapple Jelly39 recipes