Why it works: Pineapple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,841 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pineapple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Butter a deep pudding dish and line it with slices of sponge cake.
Layer and bake
Layer thin slices of pineapple over the cake.
Repeat the layers of pineapple and cake until the dish is full.
Scatter sugar generously over the pineapple.
Moisten the top layer of cake with water and sprinkle sugar on it.
Cover the dish with a buttered earthen lid or a buttered dinner plate.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1½ hours.
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.
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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 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
- Sponge cake
- Forms the soft, absorbent body of the pudding that soaks up the juices.
- Pineapple
- Adds moisture and bright acidity that flavour the cake as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly during baking.
The step that matters
Moisten the top layer of cake with water. The top layer of cake is exposed and can dry out or toast during the long slow bake. A little water keeps it moist while the covered dish steams the pudding through.
“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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