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Dessert

To Bake Pears

A dessert of pears baked in a spiced Port wine syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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To Bake Pears

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Bake 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.

Make the liquor

  1. Combine water, orange juice, cinnamon, mace, and lemon peel in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add Port wine, loaf sugar, and cochineal to the strained mixture.

Prepare and bake the pears

  1. Pare, halve, and core the pears.

  2. Place the pears in a pan.

  3. Pour the liquor over the pears.

  4. Cover the pan with parchment paper.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until tender.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Orange + peartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Baking pears
Provide the main fruit that softens and turns tender during baking.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the syrupy liquor.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the liquor and helps it thicken slightly as it reduces.
Seville orange juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour to balance the sweet wine and sugar.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, cinnamon, lemon, port wine, sugar, pear):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, cinnamon, lemon, port wine, sugar, pear. 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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