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Dessert

Jellied Pears

A dessert of pears set in a gelatinous sugar and lemon mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 600 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Jellied Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Core and peel the pears, then cut them into fourths.

  2. Bake or steam the pears until tender.

  3. Boil the cores and peels in a little water until tender.

Make the jelly

  1. Strain the juice over the dissolved gelatin.

  2. Pour the mixture over the pears and let cool.

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. Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 strained juice into a firm, sliceable jelly around the pears.
Pears
Provide the main fruit body and flavor that the jelly holds in place.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the fruit juice.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the pear juice.

The step that matters

Strain the juice over the dissolved gelatin. Gelatin only sets properly when it is fully dissolved and the liquid is not too hot or diluted. Make sure the gelatin has dissolved completely before pouring the mixture over the pears, so the jelly sets evenly rather than in patches.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, pear, cinnamon. 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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