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Dessert

Creahed Peach Pie

A peach pie with a cream filling made from milk, sugar, cornstarch, egg white, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Creahed Peach Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pie

  1. Line a deep pie dish with the pie crust.

  2. Fill two-thirds full with slices of canned peaches cooked in boiling syrup for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Cover with the top crust without pinching the edges.

Make the cream

  1. To make the cream, heat the milk to boiling, add sugar, and cornstarch mixed with cold milk, then let boil.

  2. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg white and vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Let cool slightly, then raise the top crust and pour in the cream mixture.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  5. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the body of the cream, which thickens when heated with starch.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream as it boils, giving it a set, spoonable texture.
Egg white
Folded in beaten, it adds lightness and airiness to the cream.
Canned peaches
Provide the fruit flavor and moisture filling the pie.

The step that matters

Let the cream boil after adding the cornstarch. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil, so the cream must boil before it is removed from heat. Stop too early and the filling stays thin and runny.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Peachthe original
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

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