Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Peaches, Glazed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peaches
Remove peaches from the tin and slice them about ¼ inch thick.
Lay the sliced peaches on a sieve to drain.
Dip each slice in brandy, then in castor sugar, and let them stand.
Make the batter
Cut butter into small pieces and place in a teacup.
Pour boiling water over the butter to melt it, then fill the teacup with cold water.
Gradually mix the melted butter into the flour.
Just before using, add the soaked and beaten albumen to the batter.
Fry and glaze
Dip each peach slice in the batter.
Fry the battered peach slices in boiling lard until golden.
Remove the fried peaches with a slotted spoon and place them on a hot baking dish.
Cover the peaches with fine sifted sugar.
Bake until they look like they are covered with fine glass.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Peach + brandytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together339 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,127 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter and flour 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
- Peaches
- Provide the fruit base and juicy centre that the batter surrounds.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the peaches and dissolves to form a glossy coating.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the batter coating that clings to the peaches.
- Albumen
- Egg white that aerates the batter, helping it puff and turn crisp when fried.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and flavour to the peach slices before they are sugared.
The step that matters
Fry in boiling lard. The lard must be boiling hot so the batter sets and browns quickly. If the fat is too cool, the batter soaks up oil and turns greasy instead of crisp and golden.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, brandy):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, brandy. 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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