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Dessert

Uses for Stale Cake Pine Cones

A dessert made by layering stale cake with pineapple and pineapple liquor, then shaping into cones.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and pineapple work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 228 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Uses for Stale Cake Pine Cones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cones

  1. Cut stale cake or bread into circles using a biscuit cutter.

  2. Moisten the circles with sherry, maraschino, or hot water.

  3. Chop pineapple into small pieces and pile on the cakes.

  4. Shape each cake into a cone or small pyramid.

Set and serve

  1. Place the cones in a shallow tin close together but not touching.

  2. In a saucepan, heat pineapple liquor and thicken with arrowroot mixed with water.

  3. Cook until clear and slightly thickened, then pour over the cones.

  4. Once cold, trim the bases to be round and carefully lift from the tin.

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. Sherry + pineappletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Pineapple + arrowroottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sherry + arrowroottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Bread + arrowroottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale cake or bread
Forms the firm base structure of each cone that holds its shape.
Fresh or canned pineapple
Adds fruit flavour and moisture to the cones.
Arrowroot
Thickens the pineapple liquor into a clear, glossy glaze.
Pineapple liquor
Provides liquid that is thickened into the glaze and adds pineapple flavour.

The step that matters

Thickening the glaze with arrowroot. Arrowroot must be mixed with cold water first and heated only until clear and slightly thickened. Overcooking can break down its thickening power, leaving the glaze thin, and it should be poured while still warm to coat evenly.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sherry, pineapple. 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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