Skip to main content
Dessert

Peach Dumplings

A baked dessert of peaches, bread, butter, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peach and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 625 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Peach Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the bread custard

  1. Combine the inside of a small loaf of baked bread with 2 ounces of butter in a deep pan.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling milk over the bread and let it soak until saturated.

  3. Mash the mixture until very smooth.

  4. Whisk 6 eggs until thick and light, then gradually stir them into the bread mixture.

  5. Add 1 quart of milk and mix well.

  6. Sweeten to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

  2. Sprinkle cinnamon on top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

  4. Once cooled, arrange the sliced peaches on top.

  5. Sprinkle with white sugar before serving.

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. Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked eggs set the custard as it bakes, giving the pudding its structure.
Bread (in the method)
Soaked bread forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the liquid custard.
Milk
Milk provides the liquid that soaks the bread and sets with the eggs into a custard.
Butter
Butter adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a softer, tender texture.
Peaches
Sliced peaches add fruity moisture and sweetness on top of the baked custard.

The step that matters

Mashing the soaked bread until very smooth. Lumps of unsoaked bread stay dry and firm, while a smooth base lets the eggs and milk set evenly into an uniform custard.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes