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Dessert

English Pineapple Pie

A pineapple pie with a puff pastry crust, pineapple filling, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

English Pineapple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a plate with puff pastry.

  3. Bake for 10 minutes to raise the crust.

Make the filling

  1. Cook the pureed pineapple with ½ cup sugar, lemon juice, and nutmeg or vanilla until thick.

  2. Pour the pineapple mixture into the baked crust.

Top, bake and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add ½ cup sugar to make meringue.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pineapple filling.

  4. Bake until the meringue is light brown.

  5. Serve cold.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pineapple + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Puff pastry
Forms the baked crust that holds the filling.
Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavor and moisture for the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue whip and brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet pineapple flavor.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the light meringue topping.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be fully whipped and free of yolk or grease to hold air. Sugar added gradually stabilizes the foam, so the meringue stays glossy and does not weep or collapse when baked.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, nutmeg, 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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