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Dessert

Baked Pears

A baked pear dessert with lemon, cinnamon, allspice, and sugar.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Pare and halve the pears, leaving about ½ inch of stem, and remove the core with a knife.

  3. Place the pears close together in a bright block‑tin saucepan.

  4. Add the lemon rind, lemon juice, cinnamon stick, and allspice.

Make the syrup and bake

  1. Cover the pears with spring water.

  2. Dissolve the loaf sugar in 1½ cups of water and pour it over the pears.

  3. Cover the saucepan tightly and bake for 6 hours.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Pear + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the fruit body that softens slowly into a tender, translucent texture during long baking.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and, dissolved in the liquid, helps the pears hold their shape and flavour.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the pear flesh pale.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma that infuses the syrup and the fruit.
Allspice
Adds spicy aroma that infuses the syrup and the fruit.

The step that matters

Cover the saucepan tightly and bake for 6 hours. A tight lid traps steam so the liquid does not evaporate during the long, low bake. Pears must stay submerged so they cook evenly rather than drying or browning at the exposed surface.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cinnamon, allspice, sugar. 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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