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Dessert

Uncooked French Candies

A no-bake candy made from egg whites, powdered sugar, water, essence, walnuts, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,548 recipes. Both carry 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Uncooked French Candies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Break the egg whites into a bowl.

  2. Add an equal measure of cold water and stir.

  3. Gradually mix in powdered sugar until stiff enough to mold.

  4. Flavor with your chosen essence.

Shape and dip

  1. Mold the cream into balls about ½ inch in diameter and attach half a walnut to each side.

  2. Melt chocolate in a bowl over boiling water.

  3. Once the cream balls are dry, insert a long pin and dip them in the melted chocolate until coated.

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. Walnut + chocolatetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

  5. Egg + chocolatetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped with water and sugar to form the light, stiff structure of the cream.
Powdered sugar
Thickens the cream so it holds its shape and adds sweetness.
Chocolate
Forms a sweet, firm coating around the cream balls when melted and dipped.

The step that matters

Letting the cream balls dry before dipping. Moisture on the surface can cause melted chocolate to seize, streak or slide off. Drying the shaped balls gives the chocolate a firm surface to cling to and set smoothly.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, chocolate. 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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