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Dessert

Apricot or Peach Cobbler for Winter

A fruit cobbler made with apricots or peaches, syrup, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, flour, baking powder, and milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apricot or Peach Cobbler for Winter

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the syrup, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a saucepan and boil for five minutes.

  2. Add the fruit and set aside to cool.

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour, butter, baking powder, and salt in a bowl; add enough milk or cold water to form a biscuit-like dough.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and line the sides of a baking dish; fill with the cooled fruit mixture.

  2. Cover with the remaining dough and bake at 350°F (175°C) until it begins to brown.

  3. Cover with a pan the size of the baking dish to prevent over-browning.

Serve

  1. Serve 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the cobbler topping and sides together.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and enriches the flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the topping rises and becomes light.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the fruit syrup and promotes browning of the topping.
Syrup from canned california fruit
Provides liquid and sweetness that forms the base of the fruit filling.

The step that matters

Covering the cobbler to control browning. The topping browns quickly in the oven because sugars caramelize and starches brown at high heat. Covering it with a pan once it begins to brown slows surface color so the inside can cook through without burning.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sugar, butter, cinnamon, flour, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, butter, cinnamon, flour, milk. 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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