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Dessert

Peach Meringue Pie

A pie with peaches stewed in syrup, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Peach Meringue Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a pie plate with the pastry.

  3. Bake the lined pie plate until golden.

Make the filling

  1. Peel the peaches and halve them.

  2. Stew the peaches in 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar until tender.

  3. Place the peaches on the baked pastry.

  4. Thicken the syrup with 1 tablespoon of flour.

  5. Pour the thickened syrup over the peaches.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg white with 1 tablespoon of sugar to make meringue.

  2. Place a teaspoon of meringue on each piece of fruit.

  3. Bake until the meringue is light brown.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Peach + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Peaches
Provide the main fruit flavour and soft, juicy body of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cooking syrup so it holds its shape rather than running out.
Egg white
Whipped with sugar to form a foam that bakes into a light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and syrup and helps stabilise the whipped egg white.
Pie crust
Forms the base that holds the filling and bakes to a crisp, golden structure.

The step that matters

Thicken the syrup with flour. Flour must be fully mixed into the hot syrup so it gelatinises evenly; otherwise the filling can stay thin or form lumps, and the pie will not set properly when cut.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, 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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