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Pineapple Preserves

A sweet preserve made by layering pineapple and sugar, boiling with water, and sealing in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,841 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Macerate

  1. Layer the sliced pineapple and sugar in jars and let it stand for 12 to 14 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. In the morning, remove the fruit and add 1 cup of water for each 4 pounds of pineapple to the syrup.

  2. Boil the syrup until it thickens, then skim and let it cool.

  3. Return the fruit to the syrup and boil gently until tender.

Pack and seal

  1. Pack the fruit in jars and pour the syrup over it. Seal while hot or tie up when 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. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 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

Pineapple
Provides the fruit body and its flavour, and softens as it cooks in the syrup.
White sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and thickens the syrup, preserving the fruit and giving sweetness.
Water
Dilutes the sugar syrup so it can be boiled to a thick, even consistency around the fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until it thickens. Sugar must reach a high enough concentration to thicken the syrup and help preserve the fruit. Undercooked syrup stays thin and spoils sooner, while overcooking can make the preserves too stiff or caramelised.

“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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