Name: Peach Salad
Ingredients: 4 ripe peaches; ⅔ cup sifted sugar; ⅓ cup cream

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Peach Salad

Ingredients

4 ripe peaches
⅔ cup sifted sugar
⅓ cup cream

Directions

Peel and cut the peaches into quarters.
Place them in a bowl with the sugar and toss them lightly to combine.
Dress the peaches on a dish and serve with cream poured over.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together721 recipes

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

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 body, sweetness and fresh aroma of the salad.
Sugar: Sweetens the peaches and draws out their juices to form a light syrup.
Cream: Adds richness and fat that softens the acidity of the fruit.