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Pineapple Pudding

A cornmeal pudding layered with pineapple, served cold or baked, topped with a pineapple-ginger sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pineapple Pudding

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pineapple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mush

  1. Cook cornmeal, salt, and water in a double boiler for 30 minutes.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Layer the cornmeal mush in a pudding dish.

  2. Add a layer of shredded pineapple.

  3. Alternate layers of mush and pineapple, reserving 2 tablespoons of pineapple for the sauce.

  4. Chill the pudding to serve cold.

  5. Bake the pudding for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C) to serve hot.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix pineapple juice, reserved pineapple, lemon juice, and ginger.

  2. Beat the sauce well.

  3. Serve the sauce very 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.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pineapple + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together559 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 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

Cornmeal
Forms the thick mush that sets into the body of the pudding.
Shredded pineapple
Adds moisture and bright, sweet fruit flavour between the mush layers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the pineapple sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the cornmeal mush gently in a double boiler. Cornmeal can scorch or form lumps if cooked too hot or too fast. A double boiler spreads gentle heat, and the mush needs to thicken fully so it holds its shape when layered.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, ginger):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, ginger. 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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