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Dessert

Peach Pudding

A baked peach pudding with a sour cream batter, served hot with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Slice peaches and place them in a buttered pudding dish, then sweeten them.

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix sour cream, egg, baking soda, salt, and enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  2. Pour the batter over the peaches.

  3. Bake until golden and set.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with cream.

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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peachtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + peachtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together721 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, keeping the batter tender and slightly rich.
Egg
Sets the batter as it bakes, giving the pudding structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to lift the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds together around the peaches.
Peaches
Provide fruity sweetness and moisture that softens during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until golden and set. Underbaking leaves the egg-thickened batter wet and runny, while overbaking dries it out. Look for a golden top and a centre that no longer wobbles.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, flour. 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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