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Dessert

Preserved Pears

A method for preserving pears in sugar syrup with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Preserved Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pears

  1. Pare the pears and weigh them.

  2. In a kettle, layer sugar and pears, starting with sugar at the bottom.

  3. Pour 1 pint of water over the layers.

Make the syrup

  1. Heat slowly until the sugar melts and the fruit is heated through.

  2. Boil the pears until tender.

  3. Remove the pears with a skimmer and place them on large flat dishes until the syrup thickens.

  4. Tie spices in a small bag and boil with the syrup until it thickens to a clear jelly.

  5. Skim off any foam that rises.

  6. To prevent crystallization, dissolve a piece of alum in a little water and add to the boiling sugar.

Finish and seal

  1. Return the pears to the syrup.

  2. Boil once more.

  3. Fill jars and seal.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Pear + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
The main fruit, which softens and turns tender as it cooks in the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as the syrup thickens, preserves it by drawing out water.
Alum
Helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing, keeping the syrup clear and smooth.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to a clear jelly. Sugar must be dissolved fully before boiling, and the syrup must reach a thick stage. Too little cooking leaves it thin and spoilable; too much can crystallize or darken it.

Swap the pear

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

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

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