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Dessert

Meringue of Pears, or Other Fruit

A tart filled with stewed pears topped with a sweet meringue and baked.

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

Meringue of Pears, or Other Fruit

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 the fruit

  1. Fill a deep tart dish nearly to the brim with stewed pears and cover them with their juice.

Make the meringue

  1. Whisk the egg whites to a solid froth.

  2. Stir in the dry sifted sugar until well combined.

  3. Spread the meringue evenly over the fruit.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for half an hour.

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. Sugar + peartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + peartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that traps air, giving the meringue its light structure and lift.
Sugar
Stabilises the whipped foam and adds sweetness to the meringue topping.
Stewed pears
Forms the moist, sweet fruit base that sits beneath the meringue.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites to a solid froth. Egg white proteins unfold and trap air as they are whisked, forming the foam that gives the meringue its structure. Under-whisked whites stay runny and can slide off the fruit or weep juice during baking.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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