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Pears, Border of

Stewed pears served with custard and sponge cake border, topped with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 600 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Pears, Border of

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Poach the pears

  1. Peel, halve, and core the pears.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the loaf sugar, 4 cups of water, and a few drops of carmine to make syrup.

  3. Add the pears to the syrup.

  4. Cook gently for about 30 minutes or until tender.

  5. Remove the pears.

  6. Reduce the syrup by boiling rapidly.

  7. Reheat the pears in the reduced syrup before serving.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs.

  2. Add the castor sugar, lemon rind, milk, and a few drops of cochineal to the eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Slice the sponge cakes.

  2. Place the sliced cakes in a well-buttered border mold.

  3. Pour the custard mixture over the sponge cakes.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 40 minutes in a tin containing boiling water halfway up the mold.

  5. Once ready, turn out onto a hot dish.

  6. Arrange the pears on the border.

  7. Strain the syrup over them.

  8. Serve.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they 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

Eggs
Set the custard, binding the milk and sugar so the border holds its shape when turned out.
Sponge cakes
Form the absorbent base of the border, soaking up custard as it bakes.
Small stewing pears
Provide the main fruit, softened by gentle poaching in the syrup.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the poaching syrup and thickens it when reduced, glazing the pears.
Milk
Adds liquid to the custard, giving a soft, tender set when baked.

The step that matters

Bake the custard in a water bath. Baking the border in a tin of boiling water surrounds it with gentle, even heat. This keeps the egg custard from overcooking, curdling, or becoming rubbery at the edges.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, lemon, cinnamon, milk. 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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