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Dessert

Peach Cobblers

A baked dessert of peaches topped with a dough crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Peach Cobblers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour, salt, and lard in a bowl until crumbly.

  2. Add cold water gradually to form a dough, but do not make it soft.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the bottom and sides of a pudding pan with the dough.

  2. Layer the peaches in the pan, adding butter, sugar, and a little dredged flour.

  3. Cover with a thin layer of dough, then repeat with another layer of peaches, sugar, butter, and flour.

  4. Top with a thicker layer of dough, making a small opening in the center.

  5. Pour nearly 1 pint of cold water into the opening.

  6. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 to 3 hours.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure, setting the crust and thickening the filling slightly.
Lard
Creates a tender, flaky crust by coating flour particles and keeping layers separate.
Peaches
Provide the fruit filling, releasing juices that moisten and flavor the cobbler.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the peach layers as it melts during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and helps them soften and form a syrup as they bake.

The step that matters

Keep the dough firm when adding the cold water. Adding water gradually and keeping the dough stiff prevents gluten from overdeveloping and the crust from turning soft or soggy under the juicy peaches.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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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