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Dessert

Pineapple Pie

A baked pineapple custard pie with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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

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

Make and bake the filling

  1. Mix the grated pineapple, cream, sugar, and egg yolks together.

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

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the granulated sugar.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the 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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs yolks
Thicken the pineapple custard filling as they set during baking.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stiff meringue that bakes into a light, browned topping.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, soft texture.
Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavor and moisture in the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar gradually. Under-beaten whites stay loose and weep, while adding sugar all at once can deflate them. Gradual sugar helps build a stable foam that holds its shape and browns evenly in the oven.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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