Skip to main content
Dessert

Pears, Meringue of

Pears cooked in syrup topped with a baked meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pear and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Pears, Meringue of

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pears

  1. Stew the pears in syrup until tender enough to pierce with a needle.

  2. Place the pears in a deep tart dish.

  3. Boil the syrup until reduced to half, then pour over the pears.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites to a solid froth.

  2. Stir in the powdered sugar and spread the mixture evenly over the pears.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes until the meringue is lightly colored and crisp.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pear + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Soften when stewed and provide the fruity base of the dish.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets into a light, crisp meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the meringue brown and crisp in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whipped whites, stabilizing the foam and adding sweetness.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites to a solid froth. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold a firm foam; under-whipped whites will not set into a crisp meringue and may weep or sink into the pears during baking.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes