Name: Peaches Baked
Ingredients: Peaches; Sugar; Water; Cream

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Peaches Baked

Ingredients

Peaches
Sugar
Water
Cream

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel the peaches and place them in a pan.

Bake and serve

Cover the peaches with sugar and add enough water to fill the pan halfway.
Bake until the peaches are soft.
Serve with cream.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Peach + creamtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together721 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches: Soften during baking and release juices that combine with the sugar into a syrup.
Sugar: Sweetens the peaches and helps form a syrup as the fruit cooks.
Cream: Adds richness and a cool, smooth contrast to the warm baked fruit.