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Dessert

Moulded Pears

Pears are baked, then set in a gelatinous mold with wine and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Moulded Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Poach the pears

  1. Peel and quarter the pears.

  2. Place the pears in a jar with 1 pint of water, cloves, cinnamon, and enough sugar to sweeten.

  3. Cover the jar and bake in a cool oven (300 °F/150 °C) until tender, but do not let them break.

Make the jelly and set

  1. Once done, lay the pears in a well‑wetted mould.

  2. Boil 1 pint of the baking liquid with the wine, lemon peel, strained lemon juice, and gelatine for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the warm liquid over the pears in the mould.

  4. Place the mould in a cool place until the jelly is firm, then turn it out onto a glass dish.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the main body of the dessert and take on sweetness and flavour from the poaching liquid.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds its shape when turned out.
Raisin wine
Adds body and fruity flavour to the poaching liquid used for the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the poaching liquid and balances the acidity of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sweet jelly.

The step that matters

Poach the pears gently until tender but whole. A cool oven and gentle heat soften the pears evenly, while overcooking makes the fruit break down and lose its shape in the mould.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, clove, sugar, cinnamon, raisin, wine. 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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