Why it works: Pear and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 649 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓
Apple and Pear Dumplings
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Peel the pears and apples, leaving the stalks on the pears.
Cut the pears in half and remove the cores.
Shape the pastry dough to resemble the fruit.
Assemble the fruit halves back together and encase them in the pastry.
Use cutters to create decorative shapes on the pastry.
Bake until golden brown.
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.
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Pear + appletop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together649 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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