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Dessert

Peach Pie

A fruit pie made with peaches, sugar, and a topping of egg whites and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and currant work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Peach Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a pie plate with the pie crust.

  2. Fill the crust with peaches and sweeten to taste.

Bake and top

  1. Bake until nearly done.

  2. Cover the top with dots of currant jelly or any tart jelly.

  3. Finish baking.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then stir in ¼ cup sugar.

  5. Spread the egg white mixture over the pie.

  6. Brown the egg white topping.

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. Peach + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Rich pie crust
Forms the shell that holds the filling while it bakes.
Peaches
Provide the main fruit filling and its juices.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stiff meringue topping that browns over the pie.
Currant jelly
Adds tart, fruity flavor that balances the sweetness of the peaches.

The step that matters

Brown the egg white topping. Whipped egg white and sugar can weep or collapse if overbaked, and it needs enough heat to set and brown. Watch it closely at the end so the meringue colors without burning.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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