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Baked Peaches and Pears

Baked peaches with butter, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Peaches and Pears

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

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

  2. Peel the peaches, cut them in half, and remove the stones.

  3. Place the peach halves in a baking dish, hollow side up.

Bake and serve

  1. Add 2 teaspoons of butter and 2 teaspoons of sugar to each half.

  2. Sprinkle nutmeg generously over the peaches.

  3. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until soft.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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
Soften during baking and release juices that mingle with the butter and sugar.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the fruit brown slightly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the peach surfaces caramelise as they bake.

The step that matters

Bake until soft. Peaches should be tender all the way through, but overbaking can collapse them into mush. Checking at the earlier end of the 20 to 30 minute range helps keep their shape while ensuring they soften fully.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, butter, 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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