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Dessert

Divinity Candy

A sweet candy made with sugar, dark Karo syrup, water, egg whites, and nut meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Divinity Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, water, and dark Karo syrup in a saucepan and boil until slightly stringy.

  2. Pour half of the syrup over the beaten egg whites and beat rapidly.

  3. Continue cooking the remaining syrup until it forms a solid ball when dropped in water.

Form the candy

  1. Add the cooked syrup to the beaten egg whites and fold in the nut meats.

  2. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered plates to cool.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Syrup + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes
  5. Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet syrup base that sets into the candy's structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Beaten into foam, they trap air and give the candy its light, airy texture.
Dark karo syrup
Helps control crystallization, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
Nut meats
Add crunch and body that contrast with the soft, airy candy.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to the firm-ball stage. The syrup must reach the right concentration. Undercooked syrup yields a soft, sticky candy that will not hold its shape, while overcooked syrup makes it hard and brittle.

“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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