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Dessert

Pineapple Snow

A chilled pineapple dessert thickened with cornstarch and folded with beaten egg whites.

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

Pineapple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pineapple base

  1. Combine grated pineapple, pineapple juice, water, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture just reaches boiling point.

  3. Mix cornstarch with 4 tablespoons of cold water in a small bowl.

  4. Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling mixture and stir briskly for 1 minute.

  5. Remove from heat.

Add the egg whites and set

  1. Gradually fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Beat vigorously for a moment.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  4. Let it cool completely.

Serve

  1. Serve very cold with a boiled custard sauce made from 4 egg yolks, 1½ cups milk, ½ cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pineapple + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the hot pineapple liquid so it holds its shape when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to give the snow its light, airy, foamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and helps keep the texture tender.
Grated pineapple
Adds pineapple flavour and body to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be stiffly beaten and folded in gently after the base is removed from heat. Overmixing or adding them to a hot, overstirred mixture deflates the foam, so the snow sets dense rather than light.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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