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Dessert

Scalded Pears

A dish of pears simmered in water and sweetened with molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and molasses work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 47 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Scalded Pears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pears thoroughly without peeling them.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pears in enough water to cover them until they are soft.

  2. Add molasses to the pot until it forms a sauce.

  3. Boil the mixture until the sauce thickens.

  4. Serve the pears in a dish with the sauce poured over them.

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 + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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 and soft texture once boiled until tender.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a dark, rich flavour, and thickens into a sauce when boiled.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until the sauce thickens. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the molasses, so the sauce becomes thick enough to coat the pears. Stopping too early leaves it thin and runny.

“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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