Why it works: Cinnamon and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 598 recipes mention both. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Pound the cinnamon.
Boil it in water until reduced by one-third.
Strain it.
Wet the paste with the cinnamon water.
Combine the flour and butter in a bowl, rubbing the butter into the flour.
Add the sugar and yeast.
Work the mixture lightly.
Cover the dough with a cloth.
Let it rise in a warm place.
Shape and layer
Shape the dough into small cakes or tartlets.
Fill them with stewed pears.
Cut the paste into different sizes.
Alternate layers of paste and pear marmalade.
Finish with a layer of paste cut into leaf shapes.
Bake
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until risen.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Cinnamon + peartop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together598 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 4% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together30,777 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Cinnamon + flourtop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together16,954 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together122,858 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cinnamon + buttertop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,781 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Cinnamon and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 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
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the paste once it is mixed with water and butter.
- Butter
- Rubbed into the flour, it adds fat that keeps the paste tender and short.
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it works, which makes the dough rise.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
- Cinnamon
- Infused into water and added to the paste, it gives the tart its warm aroma.
- Stewed pears
- Make up the filling, adding soft moisture and fruit sweetness to the tarts.
The step that matters
Work the mixture lightly. Overworking the dough develops gluten, which toughens the paste. Keeping the handling light and the butter rubbed in, not melted, helps the tarts stay tender.
Flavor stand-ins for the pear
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, flour, butter, sugar):
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Raisinbetter flavor fit
- Figbetter flavor fit
- Pearthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, flour, butter, sugar. 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).
“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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