Name: Dried Peaches
Ingredients: Fresh peaches; White sugar

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 ↓

Dried Peaches

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Fresh peaches
White sugar

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Halve the peaches and remove the stones.
Fill the cavities with white sugar.

Dry

Dry the peaches in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until fully dried.

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.

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

Fresh peaches: Provide the fruit flesh that dries down into a chewy, concentrated texture.
White sugar: Adds sweetness and helps draw moisture out of the fruit as it dries.

“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.