Why it works: Pear and syrup work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 254 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Candied Pears
Ingredients
Directions
Bleach and pierce
Bleach the pears in a sulphur closet for at least 6 hours, then soak in cold water.
Pierce each pear several times with a long copper needle from the eye to the stem.
Blanch and cool
Blanch the pears in a kettle of water with 1 ounce of sulphite of soda per 4 gallons of water until softened.
Cool the pears in cold water for 1-2 hours.
Candy in syrup
Place the pears in jars and pour over hot syrup mixed with 1 ounce of sulphite of soda per 5 gallons of syrup.
After 6-12 hours, drain and reboil the syrup, increasing to 22° Beaume.
Continue to increase the syrup by 2 degrees every 2 days using glucose instead of sugar.
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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Pear + syruptop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together254 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Small unripe pears
- Provide the fruit that is firmed, softened and candied through repeated syrup soaking.
- Sulphite of soda
- Bleaches the pears and helps preserve their colour during the process.
- Hot syrup
- Gradually replaces the fruit's water with sugar, sweetening and preserving the pears.
- Glucose
- Replaces sugar in later syrup increases, adding sweetness and resisting crystallisation.
The step that matters
Raising the syrup strength gradually. Increasing syrup concentration in small steps lets sugar move into the fruit slowly. A sudden jump can draw water out too fast, shrinking and toughening the pears.
“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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