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 ↓
Ripe Peach Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Peel the peaches and cut them into halves or quarters based on their size.
Layer the peaches in a dish, sprinkling sugar between each layer according to the peach's acidity.
Assemble and bake
Line a pie plate with the pie crust and fill it with the peach mixture.
Cover with a top crust, leaving a small opening in the center for steam to escape.
Bake until golden brown.
Finish
If desired, remove the top crust, mash the fruit, and add sugar to sweeten.
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.
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Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Ripe peaches
- Provide the main fruit filling, with juice that softens and sets into the pie's body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice, balancing the peaches' natural tartness.
- Pie crust
- Forms the container that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Sprinkling sugar between peach layers. Sugar must match the peaches' acidity. Too little leaves the filling tart, while too much draws out excess juice and can make the filling syrupy and runny.
“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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