Name: Peach Custard
Ingredients: freestone peaches; powdered sugar; 3 tablespoons sugar; 2 egg whites; cornstarch

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Peel and halve the freestone peaches.
Place a layer of peaches in a baking dish and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.
Prepare a cornstarch custard and pour it over the peaches.
Make meringue by beating the egg whites and adding 3 tablespoons of sugar.
Spread the meringue over the custard and bake until golden.
Serve hot.

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).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Peach + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,048 recipes

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