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Dessert

Pineapple Ice

A frozen dessert made from water, sugar, lemon juice, grated pineapple juice, and beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mix

  1. In a bowl, combine water, sugar, and lemon juice.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add the juice from the grated pineapple and mix well.

Freeze

  1. Freeze the mixture until it is partly frozen.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg white and continue freezing until solid.

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

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Egg white
Beaten and folded in, it adds air and a lighter, smoother texture to the frozen ice.
Sugar
Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point, keeping it softer and less rock-hard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour and balances the sweetness.
Pineapple juice
Provides the main flavour and some moisture for the ice.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg white while the mixture is partly frozen. Partly frozen mixture has ice crystals that are small and forming, so the egg white can be folded in evenly without deflating. Adding it to a fully liquid or fully solid mix would leave it unevenly distributed or lumpy.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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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