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Dessert

Pear Butter

A sweet, spiced preserve made by boiling pears in cider until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pear Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cider

  1. Boil the sweet cider in a pot until it reduces to one-third of its original quantity.

  2. Peel, core, and slice the ripe pears.

Cook the butter

  1. Add the pears to the reduced cider and boil until soft.

  2. Mash the pears to a pulp and season with nutmeg, cloves, mace, and cinnamon.

  3. Cook over low heat until thick enough to slice, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  4. Transfer to small stone jars for storage.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pear + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet cider
Reduced by boiling to concentrate its sugars and flavour, and to supply the liquid the pears cook in.
Ripe pears
Break down into a pulp that gives the butter its body and natural sweetness.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice that complements the sweetness of the pears and cider.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat while stirring constantly. As the mixture thickens, sugars concentrate and settle on the bottom of the pot, where they scorch easily. Constant stirring and low heat prevent burning and keep the flavour clean.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, pear, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, pear, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon. 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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