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Dessert

Pineapple Custards

A baked custard made with eggs, butter, sugar, corn starch, sweet milk, and grated pineapple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pineapple Custards

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat eggs until light and fluffy.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix butter, sugar, corn starch (or flour), and sweet milk.

  2. Fold in grated pineapple.

  3. Combine egg mixture with other ingredients and pour into custard cups.

Bake

  1. Bake in preheated oven until set.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Corn + pineappletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 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

Eggs
Set the custard into a tender structure as they cook and provide richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and smooth mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly at the edges.
Corn starch or flour
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape when baked.
Grated pineapple
Adds moisture, tart fruit flavor, and aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs firm as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the custards too early leaves them runny, while overbaking makes them dry and rubbery.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, corn, milk. 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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