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Dessert

French Pear Pie

A buttery pear pie with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

French Pear Pie

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.

Prepare the pears

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a pie tin thoroughly.

  3. Slice the pears and sweeten them to taste (about ½ cup sugar).

  4. Pack the pears into the tin and add 2 tablespoons of hot water.

  5. Cover and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Make the batter and bake

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolk, then mix in the milk and the flour combined with baking powder.

  3. Pour the batter over the pears and return to the oven for 20 minutes.

  4. When done, invert the pie onto a plate.

Top and serve

  1. Make a meringue by whipping the egg whites and adding 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue on top, brown it, and serve with whipped or plain cream.

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

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + peartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together300 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + peartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Egg yolk enriches the batter, while whipped whites form the airy meringue topping.
Flour
Provides structure to the batter so it sets around the pears as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping it rise and turn light as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter and greases the tin.
Pears
Supply the fruit filling, becoming soft and sweet under the batter.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites for the meringue. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold stiff peaks; under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold their shape and the topping can weep or flatten when browned.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, nutmeg, egg. 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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