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Pineapple Pudding

A baked pudding made with stale sponge cake, sliced pineapple, sugar, water, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pineapple Pudding

Why it works: Pineapple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,134 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pineapple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Assemble

  1. Butter a pudding dish and line the bottom and sides with slices of stale sponge cake.

  2. Pare and thinly slice the pineapple.

  3. Layer the pineapple in the dish, sprinkling sugar between layers until all is used.

  4. Pour ½ cup of water over the layers.

  5. Cover with slices of cake dipped in cold water.

Bake

  1. Cover the dish with a buttered plate and bake at 300°F (150°C) for two hours.

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.

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.

  1. Pineapple + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale sponge cake
Forms the structure and soaks up the pineapple juice as it bakes.
Pineapple
Adds moisture, acidity and fruity flavor that softens the cake layers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the pineapple.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and keeps the dish from sticking.

The step that matters

Covering the dish and baking low for two hours. The buttered plate traps steam so the pineapple and cake stay moist. Low, slow heat lets the fruit soften and the cake absorb its juice without drying or scorching.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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