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Dessert

Gateau of Pears

A baked pear cake with meringue topping and rose-colored whipped cream garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and sherry work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Gateau of Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Whisk the eggs and sugar over hot water until warm, then beat until cool.

  2. Add sifted flour and melted butter, then pour into a well-greased timbale mold.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 40 minutes.

Make the pear filling

  1. Cook the pears and sugar until soft, then add sherry and lemon juice, and rub through a sieve.

  2. Color the mixture a bright pink.

Assemble and finish

  1. Turn out the cake and fill the center with the pear mixture.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff, add 2 tablespoons of sugar, and spread over the cake.

  3. Dry the meringue in a cool oven (300°F / 150°C).

  4. Garnish with rose-colored whipped cream and a few leaves of angelica.

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 + sherrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pear + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whisked with sugar and beaten to form the airy structure of the sponge.
Pears
Cooked and sieved to give the filling moisture, body and fruity flavor.
Flour
Provides the starch that sets the sponge into a firm, sliceable crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the sponge crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff to form a light meringue that dries into a crisp topping.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs and sugar over hot water. Warming the eggs and sugar dissolves the sugar and thickens the foam, so the batter holds air. Beating until cool then stops the eggs from scrambling before the flour is folded in.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, sherry, butter, lemon, rose):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, sherry, butter, lemon, rose. 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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