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Dessert

Brandied Pears

Pears preserved in a sweet brandy syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and brandy work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 157 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Brandied Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Pare the pears, leaving the stems on.

  2. Weigh the pears and use an equal weight of sugar.

Make the syrup

  1. Heat the pears and sugar with enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Remove the pears when tender enough to pierce with a straw.

  3. Boil the syrup until thick.

  4. Add spices while boiling.

  5. Add the brandy to the boiling syrup.

  6. Remove from heat.

Pack and seal

  1. Put the pears in glass jars, filling them two-thirds full.

  2. Pour the hot syrup over the pears.

  3. Seal the jars.

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 + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Pears
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and absorbs the sweet syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it thickens into syrup, helps preserve it.
Brandy
Adds alcohol flavour and aroma and helps preserve the finished pears.

The step that matters

Remove the pears when tender enough to pierce with a straw. Pears cooked too long turn mushy and fall apart, while undercooked pears stay firm and do not take up the syrup. Testing with a straw lets the cook stop at the right point.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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