Skip to main content
Dessert

Pine-apple Cake

A moist cake made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, eggs, baking powder, grated pineapple, and optional pineapple jam, topped with pineapple frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pine-apple Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk and egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet mixture.

  6. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  7. Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

  8. Pour the batter into jelly‑cake pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cake with grated pineapple sprinkled with sugar or pineapple jam.

  3. Frost the outside of the cake.

  4. Beat 2 tablespoons of grated pineapple into the frosting.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and give it structure as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness, colour and emulsifying fat that helps keep the batter smooth.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Pineapple
Adds moisture and fruity acidity to the layers and frosting.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously deflates the whipped foam, losing the air that makes the cake light. Fold gently with a spatula so the batter keeps its rise in the oven.

Swap the pineapple

The recipe marks pineapple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, 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.

More pineapple cake recipes

Filling 4 See all 45 →

You might also like

Pineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesPineapple CreamPineapple Cream58 recipesPineapple JellyPineapple Jelly39 recipes