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Pineapple Pie

A baked pineapple pie with a sweet cream filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pineapple Pie

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 filling

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the chopped pineapple and sweet cream.

  5. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

Add the meringue

  1. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding 2 heaping tablespoons of sugar gradually.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and brown lightly in the oven.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + pineappletop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and help set the filling; whites whip into the meringue topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, fat-based texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the pie and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.
Pineapple
Provides moisture, bright fruit flavor and acidity to the filling.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and creaminess, giving the filling a softer, custard-like body.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites only foam well when free of yolk and fat, and sugar added gradually stabilizes the foam. Under-whipped or greasy whites will weep or collapse, so the meringue may slump or leak on the pie.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, 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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