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Dessert

Peach and Apricot Pie

A fruit pie filled with sliced peaches and apricots, topped with a sweet egg white glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Peach and Apricot Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pie

  1. Line a pie plate with pie crust.

  2. Pare and slice the peaches and apricots, then arrange them in the pie plate.

  3. Fill the pie well with the fruit.

  4. Cover the pie with a piece of greased paper.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

  6. Sprinkle sugar on top to suit your taste.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in the powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pie and bake until it gets a little color.

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. Peach + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Peach + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the main fruit filling, adding juicy flavor and body to the pie.
Apricots
Add tart, fruity flavor that complements the peaches in the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that sets and browns on top of the pie.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the whipped egg whites and helps them stay stable for topping.

The step that matters

Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pie and bake until it gets a little color.. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff before adding sugar, because they trap air and hold shape. Baking only until lightly colored keeps the meringue from over-browning or weeping.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Pearfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar, egg. 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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