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Pear Upside Down Cake

Whiskey-caramelized pears and browned butter top a lightly sweet yellow cake. Yeah…I’ll take a slice.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and bartlett pear share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 19 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 9
Prep25 min
Cook40 min

Ingredients

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

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By tastykitchen. 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 + bartlett peartop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Pear + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Bartlett pear + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 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

Flavor stand-ins for the bartlett pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, egg):

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Peachbetter flavor fit
  3. Apricotbetter flavor fit
  4. Bartlett pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).