Skip to main content
Dessert

Wickham Pears

A dessert of pears stewed in syrup, filled with custard made from cream of rice, egg yolks, and milk, topped with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pear and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 334 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Wickham Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the pears

  1. Peel the pears.

  2. Halve the pears.

  3. Core the pears, making a hollow in the center of each.

  4. Combine sugar, water, and essence of cochineal in a saucepan.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Add cloves and pears to the boiling syrup, ensuring they do not touch.

  7. Simmer gently until the pears are tender.

  8. Let the pears cool in the syrup.

Make the custard

  1. Chop the crystallized cherries and set aside.

  2. In a bowl, mix cream of rice with egg yolks and gradually add milk.

  3. Sweeten and flavor the mixture with vanilla.

  4. Pour the mixture into a jug and place it in a saucepan of boiling water.

  5. Stir the mixture until it thickens.

  6. Remove the jug from heat.

  7. Add the chopped cherries to the mixture.

  8. Let the mixture cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill half of the pear pieces with the custard.

  2. Cover with the other halves.

  3. Arrange the filled pears on a dish.

  4. Reduce the syrup until it thickens.

  5. Pour the syrup over the fruit when it is nearly cold.

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 + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Clove + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Hold their shape as the fruit that carries the custard and syrup, softening when simmered.
Egg yolks
Set the custard as they thicken with heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Cream of rice
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its shape when cooled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the egg yolks and cream of rice thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and gives it body as it reduces.
Crystallized cherries
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and color within the cooled custard.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over boiling water until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but can curdle or turn grainy if overheated. Cooking in a water bath and stirring constantly keeps the custard smooth while the starch and yolk proteins set.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar, cream, rice, egg, milk, vanilla):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Peppermintfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, cream, rice, egg, milk, vanilla. 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

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipes