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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the peaches
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place the whole peaches in a pudding dish and pour 2 cups of water over them.
Cover the dish and bake until the peaches are soft.
Remove the dish from the oven, drain off the juice, and let it cool.
Make the batter and bake
In a bowl, combine the milk, beaten eggs, flour, baking powder, melted butter, salt, and sugar.
Beat the mixture for 3 to 4 minutes until smooth.
Pour the mixture over the peaches in the dish.
Return the dish to the oven and bake until the top is a rich brown.
Serve
Serve with sugar and cream.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Peach + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set into a custardy structure as the pudding bakes.
- Flour
- Provides structure so the batter sets around the peaches rather than running.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness, helping the batter bake into a tender custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps the top brown as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the batter.
The step that matters
Drain the peaches before adding the batter. Excess liquid pooling under the batter can dilute the custard and stop it setting properly, leaving a soggy base.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, butter, 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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