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Dessert

Modern Cookery

A baked dessert of stewed fruit topped with a meringue made from egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and pear are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,079 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the topping

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill a dish with stewed pears or other fruit.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the fruit.

  3. Bake for 1 hour.

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. Sugar + peartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + peartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form a light, airy meringue topping that sets as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whipped egg whites, stabilising the foam and adding sweetness.
Stewed pears or other fruit
Provides moisture and fruit flavour beneath the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites must be whipped fully and the sugar added gradually so the foam holds its structure. Under-whipped or deflated whites produce a flat, weepy topping that does not set well in the oven.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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