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Dessert

Pineapple Snow

A chilled gelatin dessert made with pineapple, sugar, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pineapple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Peel and grate the pineapple, then mix it with sugar and let it sit for 1 hour.

Make the snow

  1. Combine the soaked gelatine and pineapple mixture in a saucepan over boiling water, stirring until dissolved.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool without stiffening.

  3. Whip the cream until very stiff.

  4. Place the saucepan in a bowl of cracked ice and gradually beat in the whipped cream until fully incorporated.

  5. Continue beating until the mixture is stiff and white.

Chill and serve

  1. Transfer to a glass bowl and chill in the ice for several hours.

  2. Serve with rich cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid so the mixture holds a light, airy shape when chilled.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and fat, and whipped air gives the dessert its light, fluffy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pineapple and balances its natural tartness.
Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and acidity, with moisture from the grated fruit.

The step that matters

Let the gelatine mixture cool without stiffening. If the gelatine begins to set before the cream is folded in, the mixture becomes lumpy and cannot be beaten into a smooth, stable foam. It should be cool and syrupy, not firm.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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