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Dessert

Peach Cobbler

A baked dessert of peaches with sugar, spices, and a puff pastry crust, optionally served with cream or sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Peach Cobbler

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a deep dish with a rich thick crust.

  3. Pare and cut the peaches into halves or quarters.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add sugar, spices, and flavoring to the peaches and stew slightly.

  2. Place the stewed peaches in the lined dish.

  3. Cover with a thick crust of rich puff pastry.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Once done, break up the top crust into small pieces and stir into the fruit.

  2. Serve hot or cold, with cream or sauce if desired.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together339 recipes

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

  3. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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 main fruit filling, providing moisture and fresh, tart flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out juices as the peaches stew.
Puff pastry
Forms a rich, flaky crust that browns in the oven and holds the filling.

The step that matters

Stewing the peaches before baking. Stewing softens the fruit and releases some of its juice before it goes into the crust. This helps prevent a soggy base and keeps the filling from running excessively during baking.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, brandy. 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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