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Dessert

Pear Souffle

A baked dessert made with pears, butter, lemon zest, nutmeg, breadcrumbs, sugar, egg yolks, cream, brandy, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pear Souffle

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 the pears

  1. Peel, core, and chop the pears.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the lemon zest and nutmeg, and cook until the pears are soft, stirring occasionally.

  2. Stir in the bread crumbs and sugar to taste.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks, cream, and brandy.

Bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air so the soufflé rises and becomes light.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a custard-like structure as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture body so it holds its shape.
Pears
Provide the main fruit flavour and moisture as they soften in the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the lemon and nutmeg aromas when melted with the pears.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, softer texture to the baked base.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped, so folding gently keeps the bubbles intact. Overmixing deflates them, and the soufflé will rise less and turn dense.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, nutmeg, bread, sugar, egg, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, nutmeg, bread, sugar, egg, cream. 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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