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Dessert

To Bake Pears

Pears baked in a spiced port wine syrup with sugar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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To Bake Pears

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Bake Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine water, orange juice, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and lemon peel in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add Port wine, loaf sugar, and cochineal.

Bake the pears

  1. Peel the pears, halve them, and core them.

  2. Place the pears in a pan.

  3. Pour the liquor over the pears.

  4. Cover the pan with parchment paper.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the pears are tender.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + peartop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Form the main body of the dish, softening as they bake until tender.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the syrup thicken and coat the pears.
Port wine
Adds depth and aroma to the syrup and contributes sweetness.
Seville oranges
Add acidity and citrus aroma to the poaching liquor.

The step that matters

Bake until the pears are tender. Pears vary in ripeness and density, so the time needed to soften them can differ. Testing with a knife or skewer shows when the starch has softened enough, preventing pears that are hard in the centre or collapsed and mushy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, cinnamon, clove, lemon, port wine, sugar, pear):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, cinnamon, clove, lemon, port wine, sugar, pear. 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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