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Dessert

Peach Leche-crèma

A peach custard baked with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peach Leche-crèma

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the corn starch and cook until it begins to thicken, then remove from heat.

  3. Add the melted butter to the mixture and let it cool to lukewarm.

  4. Whip in the beaten egg yolks until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the peaches in a dish, sprinkle with sugar, and pour the creamy mixture over them.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 minutes.

  3. Spread a meringue made from the whipped egg whites mixed with a little powdered sugar on top.

  4. Close the oven door until the meringue is firm.

  5. Serve cold with cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Peach + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together94 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and enrich it, while whipped whites form the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it its creamy body.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the custard a smooth, set texture.
Peaches
Provide fruit flavour and moisture beneath the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the whipped egg whites hold a stable meringue.

The step that matters

Stir in the corn starch and cook until it begins to thicken. Cornstarch needs heat to swell and thicken the milk. Removing it too early leaves the custard thin, while overcooking can cause lumps or a pasty texture.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, corn, milk, butter. 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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