Name: Peach Preserves
Ingredients: 4 cups peaches, halved and pitted; 4 cups granulated sugar

Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Preserves

Ingredients

4 cups peaches, halved and pitted
4 cups granulated sugar

Directions

Combine the peaches and sugar in a large pot.
Cook over medium heat until the peaches are tender, stirring occasionally.
Drop in a few peach stones while boiling for added flavor.

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.

Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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 body, flavor, and soft texture as they cook down.
Granulated sugar: Sweetens the preserves and, with cooking, helps thicken them and keeps them stable.

“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.