Name: Peach Sauce
Ingredients: 1 can peaches in heavy syrup; ½ cup sugar

Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Peach Sauce

Ingredients

1 can peaches in heavy syrup
½ cup sugar

Directions

Prepare

Cut the canned peaches into small cubes or crush them.

Serve

Serve the sauce over custards, puddings, or fruit salads.

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.

Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + syruptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together210 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches in heavy syrup: Provide the fruit and syrup that make up the sauce's body and sweetness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps give the sauce a syrupy body.