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 ↓
Pineapple Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit and base
Cut 4 chunks of pineapple into small dice.
Rub the remaining pineapple through a wire sieve.
Dissolve the gelatine and sugar in the pineapple pulp and let it cool.
Set the cream
Whisk the cream until stiff.
Add the fruit mixture to the whipped cream and stir until it begins to set.
Fold in the diced pineapple and pour into a wet mold.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pineapple
- Supplies the main fruit flavour and tartness, and its pulp gives the cream its moisture.
- Gelatine
- Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
- Cream
- Provides richness, and whipping it traps air that gives a light, soft texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pineapple and balances its acidity.
The step that matters
Add the fruit mixture to the whipped cream and stir until it begins to set.. Gelatine starts to set as it cools, so the fruit mixture must be cool but still fluid. Folding it in too early can cause lumps of gel, and adding it too late means the cream is already set and will not blend evenly. Stopping at the point where it just begins to thicken keeps the air in the cream intact.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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