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Blackberry and Pear Crumble with Custard

Blackberries and pears are at their best in early autumn, just as the evenings start to turn chilly and hot puddings become oh-so tempting.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and milk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 299 recipes mention both. Both carry hexanol, which smells green, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4-6
Prep30 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Put the butter and plain flour in a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the demerara sugar and set aside.

  2. Peel, core and slice the pears. Put them in a saucepan with the caster sugar for the fruit and a splash of water. Cover and simmer gently for about 10 minutes until softened.

  3. Stir the blackberries into the pears, then spoon the fruit into an ovenproof dish and spread it level.

  4. Scatter the crumble mixture evenly over the fruit, then bake for 35 to 40 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling.

  5. For the custard, warm the milk and double cream in a pan over medium heat until steaming but not boiling.

  6. Whisk the egg yolks with the 40g/1½oz caster sugar in a bowl. Slowly pour in the warm milk and cream, whisking constantly.

  7. Return the custard to a clean pan over low heat and stir constantly until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, reaching 160°F (71°C). Do not let it boil.

  8. Serve the warm crumble with the custard poured over or alongside.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pear + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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