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Dessert

Baked Pears

A baked pear dessert with egg white, sugar, vanilla, and roasted almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Baked Pears

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 ↓

Baked Pears

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. Wash the pears well without peeling them.

  2. Remove the core from the bottom end of each pear with a sharp knife.

  3. Place the pears in a granite pie dish with a little water.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for two hours or until very soft.

  2. Set the pears upright on the stem end.

Fill, top and finish

  1. Fill the holes with the beaten egg white, sweetened with sugar and flavored with vanilla.

  2. Top each pear with a blanched and roasted almond.

  3. Return to the oven and let brown slightly.

  4. Serve immediately or chilled.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Form the dish's body; baking softens their flesh until very tender.
Egg white
Fills the cored holes and sets on heating, giving a light, firm topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the beaten egg white filling.
Blanched and roasted almonds
Add a nutty flavor and crunch on top of each pear.

The step that matters

Returning the pears to the oven to brown. Egg white turns from glossy to opaque and can overcook or weep if heated too long. A short, watched bake lightly sets and browns the surface while keeping the filling tender.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Hazelnutfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Walnutfits less well

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

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