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Dessert

Pineapple Sherbet

A frozen dessert made from pineapple, sugar, lemon juice, water, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pineapple Sherbet

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 Sherbet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup and fruit

  1. Pare and grate the pineapples or use canned pineapple, including the syrup.

  2. Boil 1 quart of water with 1 pound of sugar for 5 minutes.

  3. When cold, add the juice of 2 lemons and the grated pineapple.

Freeze and finish

  1. Put the mixture into the freezer and stir until frozen.

  2. Beat the egg white to a stiff froth, add 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar, and beat again.

  3. Take the mixture out of the freezer, stir in the egg mixture, and repack.

  4. Let it stand aside for 2 hours to ripen.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 sweetness, and its juice gives the sherbet its body.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the mixture and lowers the freezing point, keeping the sherbet soft and scoopable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour and balances the sweetness.
Egg white
Whipped to a stiff froth, it adds air and a lighter, smoother texture to the frozen mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring while freezing. Stirring as the mixture freezes breaks up ice crystals and incorporates air, so the sherbet stays smooth rather than icy. Stirring is needed before the whipped egg white is folded in.

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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