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 ↓
Pine-apple Tarts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pineapple
Peel the pineapple and remove the core.
Cut the pineapple into strips and mix with sugar.
Let it stand until enough juice forms to stew.
Make the filling
Stew the pineapple until soft, then mash it with a spoon and let it cool.
Mix in the cream and fill your tart shells with the mixture.
Finish and serve
Grate sugar on top before serving.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pineapple + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Pineapple
- Provides the main fruit flavor and, once stewed and mashed, the body of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and draws out its juice as it stands.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the filling.
The step that matters
Stew the pineapple until soft. Pineapple contains enzymes that can break down dairy proteins and keep the filling from setting well. Cooking the fruit until soft deactivates them and concentrates its flavor before the cream is added.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- 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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