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Dessert

Pineapple Ice

A chilled gelatin dessert made with pineapple, lemon juice, sugar, water, gelatin, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in a little water for 2 hours.

  2. Boil the water and sugar for 5 minutes, then set aside to cool.

  3. Chop the pineapple finely or strain out the juice, as preferred.

Make and freeze

  1. Mix the lemon juice, syrup, and gelatin, then strain the mixture.

  2. Add the pineapple and freeze the mixture.

  3. When nearly frozen, fold in the beaten whites of the eggs.

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 + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Pineapple + gelatintop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid so the ice holds a smooth, firm texture when frozen.
Egg whites
Whipped whites add air and lightness to the frozen mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and softens the texture of the frozen ice.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the sweetness of the syrup and pineapple.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Fold gently when the mixture is nearly frozen so the whites keep their air. Stirring hard or letting it freeze fully first knocks air out and makes the ice dense.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, gelatin, 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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