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Dessert

Bavaroise Aux Poires

A custard dessert made with pears, lemon, almonds, sugar, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bavaroise Aux Poires

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the pears, then slice them.

Cook

  1. In a preserving pan, combine the pears, lemon juice, lemon rind, chopped almonds, sugar, and isinglass.

  2. Place the pan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, and cook until the pears are tender.

Finish

  1. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve to achieve a smooth texture.

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pear + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together175 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the bulk of the purée and provide the main fruit flavour and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the finished mixture its body.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the mixture as it cools.
Bitter almonds
Contribute a distinctive aroma of almond flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing through the sieve. Pears must be fully tender before sieving, since firm fruit will not pass through cleanly and leaves a grainy rather than smooth texture. Pressing the cooked mixture through a fine sieve removes fibres and skins for a silky result.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, almond, sugar):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, almond, sugar. 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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