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Dessert

Bared Pears

Pears baked with sugar and water until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and sugar 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 ↓

Bared 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Place the pears in a deep baking dish or pan.

  3. Add the sugar and water to the dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 2½ to 3 hours until tender.

  2. Serve warm; note that they do not keep well.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pears
Provide the main body of the dish, softening into tender fruit during the long bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pears take on a richer flavour as they cook.
Water
Creates a moist gentle-cooking liquid in the dish so the pears soften without drying out.

The step that matters

Bake until tender. The pears need the full long bake at low heat so the starches and fibres soften evenly. Pulling them early leaves them firm in the centre, while overbaking can make them collapse and lose shape.

“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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