Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓
Pineapple Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Heat the milk to boiling point.
Add the sugar and set aside to cool.
Freeze and finish
Once the milk is cold, add 1 pint of cream and the grated pineapple, then freeze.
When half frozen, add the remaining whipped cream and the beaten egg white, then finish freezing.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together885 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the cream, sugar and pineapple are combined into.
- Cream
- Adds fat, which gives the frozen ice cream a smooth, rich texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen ice cream softer by lowering its freezing point.
- Grated pineapple
- Provides the main flavour and a touch of acidity.
- Egg white
- Whipped into the mix, it traps air that makes the ice cream lighter.
The step that matters
When half frozen, add the remaining whipped cream and the beaten egg white. Adding the whipped cream and egg white only when the base is partly frozen keeps them from melting or deflating. Fully frozen mixture is too stiff to fold into, and fully liquid mixture cannot hold the trapped air well.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, sugar, 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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