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Dessert

Peach Meringue

A dessert of peaches topped with meringue and served with a custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Peach Meringue

Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the peaches

  1. Pare and quarter the peaches, removing the stones.

  2. Place the peaches in an oven‑safe dish and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Cover the peaches with the beaten egg whites.

Bake and cool

  1. Bake at 400 °F (200 °C) until the meringue is a delicate brown.

  2. Remove from the oven and cool.

  3. Refrigerate or place in a cool area.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks with the milk.

  2. Sweeten and flavor the mixture to taste.

  3. Cook the mixture in a custard kettle.

  4. Stir gently to prevent curdling.

  5. Once cooled, pour the custard into a glass pitcher.

  6. Serve the custard with the meringue.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Peaches
Supply the fruit base and its flavour under the meringue.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and helps draw out their juices.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stable foam that bakes into the browned meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when heated.

The step that matters

Stir the custard gently while it cooks. Egg proteins in the custard set when heated. Overheating or stirring too hard can make them tighten and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth custard.

“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.

More peach meringue recipes

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