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Dessert

Peach Pie

A fruit pie made with ripe peaches, sugar, and optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Peach Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pre-bake the pie shells until they are about two-thirds done.

  2. Cut the ripe peaches into halves or quarters.

  3. If the peaches are ripe but not soft, sugar them a few hours before using.

  4. If the peaches are not ripe, stew them before adding to the pie.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the cut peaches in the pie shell.

  2. Sweeten the peaches to taste.

  3. Flavor the peaches to taste.

  4. Cover the pie if desired.

  5. Finish baking in a quick oven at 400°F (200°C).

  6. For a tart, omit the top crust.

  7. Substitute the top crust with a thick layer of whipped 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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. 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

Ripe peaches
Provide the main fruit filling, with their juices and flavor forming the body of the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and draws out juice, adding sweetness to the filling.
Pie shells
Hold the filling and form the crust that bakes around the peaches.
Whipped cream
Can replace the top crust, adding a soft, cool, creamy layer.

The step that matters

Pre-bake the pie shells to about two-thirds done. A partly baked shell keeps its structure and resists sogginess when the wet peach filling is added and the pie finishes baking.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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