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Dessert

Peach Pie

A pastry pie filled with peaches and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,308 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peach Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a pie tin with puff pastry.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crust with halved or quartered peaches and cover them with sugar.

  2. Add an upper crust and bake until done, or bake without an upper crust.

  3. Remove from the oven and cover with a meringue made from beaten egg whites and powdered sugar.

  4. Return to the oven and brown slightly.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Peach + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the crust that holds the filling and bakes up flaky and crisp.
Fresh peaches
Provide the fruit filling, supplying moisture and fruity flavour as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and draws out their juices as they bake.
Egg whites
Whip into a meringue that sets and browns on top of the pie.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it whip into a stable, glossy topping.

The step that matters

Return to the oven and brown slightly. Meringue can turn from golden to scorched in moments. Watching it closely keeps the topping browned but not burnt, since its sugar caramelises quickly at high heat.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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