Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Pine Apple Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cream
Dissolve the sugar in the lemon juice over a clear flame.
Mix the dissolved sugar with the grated pineapple and heavy cream.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and whisk until smooth.
Serve
Divide the small squares of pineapple into each glass of cream.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,574 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Heavy cream
- Provides richness and body, giving the finished cream its smooth, thick texture.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the cream and, once dissolved, helps balance the acidity of the lemon juice.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the sweetness of the pineapple.
- Fresh pineapple
- Supplies the main fruit flavour and aroma of the cream.
The step that matters
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Grated pineapple contains fibres that can leave the cream stringy or gritty. Pressing it through a fine sieve removes these fibres and gives a smooth texture.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Bananafits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, sugar, cream. 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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