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Dessert

Peach Meringue

A custard of milk, corn starch, butter, egg yolks, and powdered sugar baked with peaches and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Peach Meringue

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peach Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil 1 quart of milk, reserving ½ cup to moisten 2 tablespoons of corn starch.

  2. Once the milk boils, add the moistened corn starch and stir constantly until thick.

  3. Remove from heat, add 1 tablespoon of butter, and let cool.

  4. Beat in the yolks of 3 eggs until the mixture is light and creamy.

  5. Add ½ cup of powdered sugar to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. In a well-buttered baking dish, layer 2-3 cups of peaches and sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

  2. Pour the custard over the peaches and bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites, sweetened to taste, over the top.

  4. Return the dish to the oven until the meringue is light brown.

  5. Serve warm with a rich sauce or cold with sweetened 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + peachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together94 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

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

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 custard, which thickens as the starch gelatinises when heated.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiling milk into a smooth custard that holds its shape when cooled.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard, giving it a creamy, soft-set texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into the meringue, they set in the oven and brown to form the topping.
Peaches
Provide fruit flavour and moisture beneath the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and the meringue, and helps the whites stay stable when beaten.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch into the boiling milk. Cornstarch must be stirred constantly as it heats; otherwise it clumps and does not thicken evenly. It only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil, so the custard stays smooth and sets properly.

Swap the peach

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

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

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