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Dessert

Pineapple Cake Filling

A sweet filling made with egg, butter, pineapple juice, flour, sugar, and optional candied pineapple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Cake Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg until light.

  2. Add the pineapple juice.

  3. Mix the flour and sugar together.

  4. Add the mixture to the egg mixture.

  5. Add the butter and salt.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook in a double boiler until thick like paste.

  2. If using candied pineapple, add it when the mixture is 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.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + pineappletop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Thicken and set as they heat, giving the filling structure and body.
Flour
Its starch swells and thickens the filling as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the pineapple juice.
Pineapple juice
Adds moisture and fruity flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook gently in a double boiler until thick. Egg thickens with gentle heat and can curdle or scramble if overheated. Flour starch must cook fully to thicken and lose its raw taste, so the filling should reach a thick, paste-like texture.

Swap the pineapple

The recipe marks pineapple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, sugar. 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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