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Dessert

Cherry Cobbler

A baked cherry dessert with a puff pastry crust, almond topping, and whipped egg white topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cherry 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 the crust

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

  2. Line a spring form pan with rich puff pastry and fork the dough.

  3. Parbake the crust until lightly golden.

  4. Sprinkle ½ cup bread crumbs in the bottom of the crust.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat 6 egg yolks with 1 cup sugar.

  2. Add the drained cherries and ½ pound chopped almonds to the egg mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into the crust and bake until set.

Top and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat 6 egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the cobbler.

  3. Sprinkle additional chopped almonds on top and bake until light brown.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, buttery crust that holds the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the yolks set smoothly.
Cherries
Provide fruit flavour and moisture to the filling.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour to the filling and topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks so the topping stays light and airy. Under-whipped whites will deflate and make the topping flat and dense, while any trace of fat or yolk will stop them whipping properly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

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