Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓
Peach Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Line a pie tin with the pastry.
Fill the tin with the halved peaches.
Sprinkle the sugar over the peaches.
Sift the flour on top and add a few bits of butter.
Just before serving, fill the pie with whipped cream.
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.
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More peach pie recipes
You might also like
Peach Ice Cream64 recipes
Peach Fritters55 recipes
Peach Meringue40 recipes
Peach Ice16 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.