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Dessert

Dried-peach Pir

A pie made with stewed peaches, sugar, cream or water, butter, and pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dried-peach Pir

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Stew the peaches until soft, then mash finely.

  2. Add ½ cup sweet cream and 1 cup sugar.

  3. If omitting cream, add ½ cup boiling water and butter.

  4. Mix well and pour into prepared pie crusts.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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 flavor and the moist, soft body of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown in the oven.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a softer, smoother texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavor in the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Sugar and fat brown as the pie bakes, so the golden color is the main sign of doneness. Pulling it too early leaves the filling underset and pale, while overbaking can scorch the sugars and dry the crust.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, butter. 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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