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Dessert

Pineapple Bavarian Cream

A chilled dessert made from pineapple, lemon juice, gelatin, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Pineapple Bavarian Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pineapple base

  1. Heat the grated pineapple with the lemon juice.

  2. Soak the gelatin in cold water until swelled and soft.

  3. Pour the hot pineapple mixture over the gelatin and stir until dissolved.

Set and serve

  1. Set the mixture in a pan of ice water and stir occasionally.

  2. When it begins to thicken, fold in the whipped cream.

  3. Pour into wet molds and serve cold.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  3. Pineapple + gelatintop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + gelatintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable cream as it cools.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when folded in whipped.
Grated pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and moisture of the cream.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet pineapple flavour.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture while it cools in ice water. Gelatin begins to set as it cools, so the mixture must be stirred to keep it even. If it thickens unevenly or too far before the cream is folded in, the cream will not blend smoothly and the texture will be lumpy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, gelatin, cream):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, gelatin, 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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