Name: Peach Puffs
Ingredients: puff pastry; preserved peaches, thinly sliced; sugar; egg white; chopped almonds or walnuts; granulated sugar

Why it works: Peach and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Peach Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Roll out the puff pastry moderately thin.
Spread thin slices of preserved peaches over the pastry.
Sprinkle sugar over the peaches.
Cover with another layer of pastry and cut into bars.
Brush the tops with egg white.
Sprinkle with chopped almonds or walnuts mixed with granulated sugar before baking.

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.

Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).