Skip to main content
Dessert

Peach, and Pear

A sun-dried fruit dish made from peaches and pears stewed, seasoned with ginger, sweetened with brown sugar, and layered with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peach and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 114 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Peach, and Pear

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Peel the peaches and pears.

  2. Stew the fruit in enough water until fully cooked.

  3. Pass the cooked fruit through a colander to remove hard bits.

Season and prepare

  1. Season the fruit with ginger; leave the pears and peaches unseasoned.

  2. Sweeten the fruit to taste with brown sugar.

  3. Rub unsalted butter on the bottom of long dishes.

  4. Spread the fruit in layers about ⅓ inch thick in the dishes.

Dry in the sun

  1. Set the dishes in the sun to dry.

  2. Once the upper side is dry, carefully turn the fruit over.

  3. Continue turning until the fruit is completely dry, taking it inside at night.

Store

  1. Store the dried fruit in jars with a little powdered sugar between the layers.

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 + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together114 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pear + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Peach + gingertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  5. Pear + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together583 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Form the main body of the fruit and concentrate their flavor and sugars as moisture leaves.
Pears
Add bulk and mild sweetness, and dry into a chewy texture as water evaporates.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note, and helps the dried fruit stay soft and moist.
Unsalted butter
Greases the dishes so the fruit does not stick and adds a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Turn the fruit until completely dry. Moisture must leave the fruit evenly. Turning exposes both sides to air and sun, and fruit stored while still damp can spoil or mould.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

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

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipes