Name: Peach Pie
Ingredients: 6 or 7 peaches, sliced; ½ teaspoon salt; ¾ cup sugar; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon nutmeg; ½ stick butter; 3 tablespoons cornstarch

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Peach Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C).

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix sugar, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Sprinkle the mixture over the sliced peaches placed in the bottom pie crust.
Slice the butter and place it on top of the peaches.

Bake

Cover with the top crust and bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together625 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together342 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together860 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 filling, releasing juices that become the pie's syrupy body as they cook.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and draws moisture out of the peaches to form syrup.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the filling as it melts over the peaches.
Cornstarch: Thickens the peach juices as they heat, so the filling sets rather than running.