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Pine-apple Punch

A chilled punch made with pineapple, water, syrup, lemon juice, brandy, champagne, and meringued egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pine and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 480 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pine-apple Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Peel and slice the pineapple, then pound it in a mortar and pass it through a fine sieve.

  2. Stir in the water, syrup, and lemon juice.

  3. Freeze the mixture in an ice tub.

Make the punch

  1. Mix the frozen pineapple water with the brandy, lemon juice, and champagne.

  2. Pack the punch in ice and work until frozen.

  3. Whip the egg whites with sugar to form a meringue and mix with the punch before serving.

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. Pine + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together480 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Brandy + champagnetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  5. Apple + champagnetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple (in the method)
Supplies the main fruit flavour and juice that makes up the punch base.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue to give the finished punch a light, foamy texture.
Sparkling champagne
Adds bubbles and a dry, lively character to the punch.
Dantzic brandy
Adds alcohol and warming aroma, and helps keep the frozen punch from setting too hard.
Syrup
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites with sugar to form a meringue. Egg whites need to be whipped to firm, glossy peaks with sugar so they hold air. If they are under-whipped or deflate when mixed in, the punch loses its light, foamy texture.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pine, syrup, lemon, brandy, champagne, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pine, syrup, lemon, brandy, champagne, egg, sugar. 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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