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Dessert

Creahed Peach Pie

A peach pie filled with a creamy custard made from milk, sugar, corn starch, egg white, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Creahed Peach Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pie

  1. Line a deep pie dish with rich pie crust.

  2. Fill two-thirds full with slices of canned peaches that have been dropped into boiling syrup and cooked for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Cover with crust but do not pinch the edges.

Make the cream and finish

  1. When rather cool, raise the top crust and pour in the cream mixture.

  2. To make the cream, heat ½ cup milk to boiling.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon corn starch mixed with cold milk.

  4. Let boil, then add the beaten egg white and ¼ teaspoon vanilla.

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. Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable cream when it boils.
Egg white
Adds structure and body to the cream as it is beaten in and heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream that sets around the peaches.
Canned peaches
Provide the fruit filling and moisture that the cream surrounds.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the cream and balances the fruit's tartness.

The step that matters

Letting the cream boil after adding the corn starch. Corn starch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil, and the starch must be mixed with cold milk first so it does not clump. Stopping early leaves the cream thin, while the beaten egg white must be added at the boil with care to keep the cream smooth.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, corn, egg, vanilla. 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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