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Pineapple Sherbet

A chilled pineapple dessert made with milk, sugar, lemon juice, salt, and crushed ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pineapple Sherbet

Why it works: Pineapple and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 885 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Pineapple Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the grated pineapple, milk, sugar, and lemon juice in a freezer.

  2. Prepare ice by mixing 1 saucerful of coarse sea salt with 2 saucerfuls of finely crushed ice.

Freeze

  1. When freezing, ensure the ice comes a few inches above the sherbet.

  2. Turn the mixture slowly at first for a few minutes, then rapidly until it cannot be turned any longer.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Milk
Provides the creamy body and smooth texture of the sherbet.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point so it stays soft.
Pineapple
Supplies the main fruit flavour and acidity.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour.

The step that matters

Turning the mixture while it freezes. Turning slowly at first lets the mixture chill evenly, and turning faster afterward breaks up ice crystals as it sets. Turning too fast early, or too little, leaves a coarse, icy texture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, milk, sugar. 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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