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Dessert

Pineapple Icing

A sweet glaze made from grated pineapple, sugar, lemon juice, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Icing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix the grated pineapple and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. If using canned pineapple, reduce the sugar by one-third.

  3. Add the lemon juice and boil slowly until the syrup spins a thread when dropped from a fork.

Whip and finish

  1. Whip the egg whites to a froth in a separate bowl.

  2. Pour the syrup over the egg whites in a fine stream while beating steadily.

  3. Continue beating hard for a few moments while the saucepan is off the heat.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a pan of cold water and beat slowly until thick enough to spread.

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. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and moisture for the syrup and icing.
Sugar
Sweetens the icing and thickens the pineapple into a syrup that sets when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, spreadable body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the egg white foam stable.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must go in as a fine stream while beating steadily. Hot syrup partly cooks the whites, setting the foam. Pouring too fast or stopping to beat can leave the icing runny or lumpy.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, egg. 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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