Why it works: Peach and milk work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 781 recipes. Both carry phellandrene, which smells minty. The science ↓
Peach Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Remove the skin and stone from the peaches.
Cover the peaches with 1 cup of sugar.
Make the custard
Heat 1½ pints of milk in a saucepan.
In a bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of corn starch and 2 tablespoons of sugar with the egg yolks.
Stir the egg mixture into the heated milk.
Cook the mixture until it thickens.
Finish
Use the 3 egg whites to make frosting.
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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Peach + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Peach + corntop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together94 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,308 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 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
- Peaches
- Provide the main fruit flavour and body of the pudding.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with heat.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the milk mixture so the custard becomes smooth and set.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into the frosting topping, adding airy lightness.
The step that matters
Cook the mixture until it thickens. Corn starch and egg yolks thicken only when heated enough; undercooking leaves the custard thin, while overheating can curdle the eggs, so watch closely and stir constantly.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, corn, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, corn, 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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