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Dessert

Pears in Jelly

A dessert of pears covered in raspberry jelly and topped with vanilla-flavored whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 334 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pears in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Arrange the pears neatly on a crystal dish.

  2. Dissolve the raspberry jelly.

  3. Pour the dissolved jelly over the pears.

Add the cream

  1. Whip the cream.

  2. Flavor the whipped cream with vanilla essence.

  3. Pile the flavored whipped cream on top of the jelly-covered pears.

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. Pear + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Raspberry + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  3. Pear + raspberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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
Provide sweet, soft fruit that the jelly surrounds and holds in place.
Raspberry jelly
Sets as it cools, giving the dessert its wobbly body, fruity sweetness and color.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped.
Vanilla essence
Adds aroma that rounds out the sweetness of the cream.

The step that matters

Pour the dissolved jelly over the pears. Jelly sets as it cools, so it must be fully dissolved and still liquid when poured. If it is too hot it can soften the fruit, and if it has begun to set it will not coat the pears evenly.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, raspberry, vanilla):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, raspberry, vanilla. 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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