Name: Pineapple Canapes
Ingredients: square sponge cakes; butter; canned chopped pineapple; arrowroot; cold water

Why it works: Pineapple and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 31 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pineapple Canapes

Ingredients

Directions

Split the sponge cakes in half.
Melt a little butter in a chafing dish over medium heat.
Brown the cake slices on both sides in the hot butter.
Place the browned slices on a plate and spread each with a layer of canned pineapple.
Pour the juice from the can into the chafing dish.
Moisten 2 teaspoons of arrowroot with cold water and stir it into the hot juice.
Continue stirring until the mixture thickens and becomes clear.
Pour the sauce over the pineapple-covered cake slices.

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.

Pineapple + arrowroottop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together31 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + pineappletop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,134 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + arrowroottop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together610 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).