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Dessert

Baked Pears

Baked pears are pears roasted with sugar and water, served with sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Baked Pears

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Baked Pears

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Pare and core the pears without dividing them.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the pears in a baking dish and fill each with a teaspoon of sugar.

  2. Add a little water to the dish.

  3. Bake until the pears are perfectly tender.

  4. Serve with sweet cream.

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

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

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  3. Pear + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 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

Pears
Hold their shape while softening, becoming tender and sweet as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the pears and helps the filling caramelize slightly in the baking dish.

The step that matters

Bake until the pears are perfectly tender. Pears need enough heat and time for their starch and cell walls to soften fully. Underbaked pears stay firm and grainy, while overbaking can make them mushy and collapse.

Swap the pear

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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