Skip to main content
Dessert

Peach Sauce

A sweet sauce made from peach juice, water, sugar, raisins, and bitter almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Peach Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Pour the peach juice into a small saucepan.

  2. Add an equal volume of water and more sugar to taste.

  3. Add 8-10 raisins and boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Finish

  1. Just before serving, add 8 drops of extract of bitter almonds.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Peach + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Peach + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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

Peach juice
Provides the main fruit flavour and the liquid base of the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the fruit's acidity.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and some body as they soften in the simmering liquid.
Bitter almond extract
Adds a strong almond aroma that gives the sauce its distinctive character.

The step that matters

Adding the bitter almond extract just before serving. Its aromatic compounds are volatile, so prolonged heat drives them off and can leave the flavour weak or harsh. Adding it at the end, in a measured 8 drops, keeps the aroma fresh and the taste balanced.

Swap the peach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, almond. 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

Peach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipes