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Dessert

Pineapple Dutch Cake

A moist cake with pineapple pieces baked in a batter of eggs, butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Dutch Cake

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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter and pineapple layer

  1. In a bowl, make a batter by mixing 3 eggs, ½ cup butter, 3 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 cup milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

  2. In another bowl, combine the chopped pineapple with ½ cup sugar.

  3. In a baking dish, layer the pineapple mixture, then add a layer of cake batter on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden and set, then let it cool.

  2. Serve with whipped cream and maraschino cherries.

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. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the cake its set structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's main structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Pineapple
Adds moisture and fruity acidity to the layer beneath the batter.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, sugar, milk, vanilla, 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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