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Pear Butter

A sweet spread made by cooking pears with sugar and spices until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pear Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Wash the pears and boil them without peeling until soft and mushy.

  2. Rub the cooked pears through a colander to remove cores, seeds, and skins.

Cook the butter

  1. Put the pear pulp into a kettle with half as much sugar.

  2. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves to taste.

  3. Cook the mixture slowly until smooth and thick, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  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
Provide the bulk of the pulp, which cooks down into a smooth, thick spread.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the butter as water evaporates.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture slowly while stirring constantly. Pear pulp is high in sugar and starch-like pectin, so it scorches easily on the bottom of the kettle. Constant stirring and gentle heat prevent burning and let moisture evaporate evenly until the butter turns smooth and thick.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove. 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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