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Dessert

Pineapple Cake

A moist cake with pineapple filling and egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pineapple 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder, then add to the creamed mixture alternately with milk.

  5. Pour the batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, cook the grated pineapple, ¾ cup sugar, lemon juice, 1 teaspoon butter, and egg yolks together until it thickens.

  2. Once cool, spread the filling between the layers of cake.

Make the icing and finish

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites and gradually add powdered sugar until it reaches a spreadable consistency.

  2. Spread the icing over the top and sides of the cake.

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

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb and flavour.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set, and help bind and lighten the batter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure once the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Thicken the pineapple filling as they cook and add richness.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that gives the icing its light, spreadable body.

The step that matters

Cooking the pineapple filling. Egg yolks can scramble if heated too fast. Cooking gently while stirring thickens the custard smoothly as the proteins set slowly.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

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