Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Pine-apple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Grate the peeled pineapple.
Weigh the grated pineapple and use the same weight of fine white sugar.
Use half the weight of the pineapple in butter, and cream the butter and sugar together.
Mix and bake
Stir in the grated pineapple and the beaten eggs.
Add the cream and mix well.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) with or without a crust, as preferred.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Pineapple + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,134 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pineapple
- Provides the main moisture, sweetness and fruity flavor of the pudding.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream to a light, smooth base.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the baked pudding.
The step that matters
Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter with sugar works air into the fat, which gives a lighter, more tender pudding. Under-creamed butter leaves a denser result.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, 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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