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Dessert

Preparation of the Pineapple

A dessert of canned pineapple slices dusted with powdered sugar and soaked in kirsch or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 298 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Preparation of the Pineapple

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the pineapple slices from the can and dry them thoroughly.

  2. Lay the slices on a large platter.

  3. Sprinkle the powdered sugar over the slices.

  4. Add the kirsch or brandy and allow it to soak.

  5. Turn the slices over three or four times to ensure the sugar and liquor soak through.

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. Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Pineapple slices
Provide the fruit base that soaks up the sugar and liquor.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the juices on the fruit.
Kirsch or brandy
Adds aroma and a boozy flavour that soaks into the fruit.

The step that matters

Turning the slices to soak. Turning the slices three or four times helps the sugar and liquor reach both sides of each slice evenly, so the flavour is consistent throughout rather than pooling on one side.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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