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Dessert

Pear, Peach and Apple Pudding

A baked fruit custard made with pears, cloves, citrus peel, water, cream, eggs, sugar, flour, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pear, Peach and Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pears

  1. Peel and chop the pears.

  2. In a saucepan, combine pears, cloves, lemon or orange peel, and water; stew for 15 minutes.

  3. Transfer the pears to a pudding dish.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together.

  2. Add flour and grated nutmeg, then gradually mix in the cream or milk while stirring.

  3. Pour the custard mixture over the pears.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set.

  2. Serve cold with sweetened cream.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and bind it into a tender, sliceable texture as it bakes.
Cream or milk
Supplies liquid and richness, giving the custard a smooth, soft texture.
Pears
Provide the main fruit flavour and moisture beneath the set custard.
Flour
Thickens the custard slightly so it holds its shape rather than weeping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the tartness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs set when heated to roughly 70 to 80°C, so the custard needs to be baked until just firm. Overbaking makes it curdle, weep and turn rubbery, while underbaking leaves it runny.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, lemon, cream, egg, sugar, flour, nutmeg. 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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