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Pine-apple Sauce

A sweet sauce made from butter, sugar, optional egg white, pineapple, and water, simmered and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,134 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pine-apple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the butter and sugar together.

  2. If desired, add the egg white.

  3. Flavor with pineapple or another flavoring.

Shape

  1. Form the mixture into a pyramid shape.

  2. Use a teaspoon to shape it like a pineapple.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add grated pineapple and a little water to a pot.

  2. Simmer until tender.

  3. Gradually mix in half its weight in sugar.

  4. Boil gently for 5 minutes.

  5. Serve.

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. Butter + pineappletop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mixture a smooth, rounded flavor.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and body as it dissolves into the mixture.
Grated pineapple
Supplies the main fruit flavor, acidity, and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in half its weight in sugar. Adding sugar slowly lets it dissolve evenly into the hot fruit, which helps prevent grainy clumps and an uneven sweetness.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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