Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Peach Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Peel the peaches, remove the stones, and cut them into quarters.
Line a deep pie plate with the pie crust.
Fill the pie
Add a layer of peaches.
Add a thick layer of sugar.
Add 1 tablespoon of water.
Sprinkle flour.
Cover and bake
Cover with another crust and bake for one hour.
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.
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,308 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Peach + flourtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together787 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Peaches
- Provide the fruit filling, juice, and most of the flavour.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and draws juice out of the fruit to form a syrup.
- Flour
- Thickens the fruit juices as they heat, so the filling holds together when sliced.
- Pie crust
- Encloses the filling and holds its shape while it bakes.
The step that matters
Sprinkle flour. Flour must be spread evenly over the fruit so its starch thickens the juices throughout. Clumps leave pockets of raw, pasty starch and a runny filling elsewhere.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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