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Dessert

White Sugar Candy

A hard, white candy made from sugar, vinegar, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,832 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

White Sugar Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sugar

  1. Combine sugar, vinegar, butter, and a little water in a saucepan.

  2. Heat without stirring until boiling.

  3. Drop a small amount into cold water to test for doneness; it should harden.

Shape and finish

  1. Pour onto 5-7 buttered plates.

  2. Once cool enough to handle, pull the candy until white.

  3. Flavor with vanilla.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + walnuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Forms the candy's structure and provides all of its sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the candy's texture and reduces foaming while it boils.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness in cold water. The final hardness depends on how far the sugar syrup has cooked. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it brittle or scorched, so the cold-water test guides when to stop.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Soybeanfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, butter. 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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