Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Peach Pudding
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.
Prepare the peaches
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Fill a pudding dish with whole peeled peaches and pour 2 cups of water over them.
Cover tightly and bake until the peaches are tender.
Drain off the juice and let it cool.
Make the batter and bake
In a bowl, mix the cooled juice with 1 pint of sweet milk, 4 beaten eggs, 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of melted butter, and a pinch of salt. Beat the mixture well for 3-4 minutes.
Pour the mixture over the peaches in the dish and bake until brown.
Serve with cream.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Peach + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set into a custard-like structure as it bakes.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides starch that thickens the batter and gives the pudding body.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the baked top.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and richness, helping form a tender, custard-like crumb.
- Peaches
- Provide fruit flavor and moisture that soften and sweeten the pudding base.
The step that matters
Drain and cool the peach juice before mixing. The cooled juice is added to the batter with eggs and baking powder. If it is still hot, the eggs can begin to scramble and the baking powder can react too early, weakening the rise and texture.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, sugar, butter. 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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