Skip to main content
Dessert

Pineapple Pudding

A chilled dessert made with tapioca, pineapple, lemon juice, sugar, water, egg whites, and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Pineapple Pudding

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Soak the tapioca in water overnight, then drain.

Cook the pudding

  1. In a pot, combine the drained tapioca, shredded pineapple, lemon juice, sugar, water, and salt.

  2. Cook slowly, stirring very little until the tapioca is clear.

  3. Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with whipped cream flavored with sugar.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Tapioca
Thickens the pudding as it cooks, giving it a clear, soft, gel-like body.
Egg whites
Beaten whites fold in to add lightness and an airy texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the acidity of the pineapple and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavor of the pineapple.

The step that matters

Cooking the tapioca slowly with little stirring. Tapioca thickens as its starch gelatinizes with heat, and stirring too much can break the granules and make the pudding gummy or cloudy. Gentle heat and minimal stirring let it turn clear and evenly thickened.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, egg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesPineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes