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Dessert

Peach and Apricot Pies

A fruit pie made with peaches, apricots, sugar, and topped with a beaten egg white and powdered sugar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Peach and Apricot Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fruit

  1. Line a pie plate with pie crust.

  2. Pare and slice the peaches and apricots, then lay them in the plate.

  3. Fill the pie well with the fruit.

Bake the pie

  1. Cover the pie with a piece of greased paper and bake it at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Once done, sprinkle sugar to taste.

Make and bake the topping

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in the powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pie and bake until it gets a little color at 400°F (200°C).

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 + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Peach + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pie crust
Forms the base that holds the fruit filling in the pie plate.
Peaches
Provide the main fruit filling, adding moisture and flavor as they cook.
Apricots
Add tart fruit flavor and moisture to the filling as they cook.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets into a light topping when baked.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whipped egg whites, sweetening the topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the finished pie to taste.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks; under-beaten whites stay runny and will not hold shape or set properly when baked on top of the pie.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Pearfits about as well

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