Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Cheap Butter Scotch
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
Boil the sugar and vinegar until it cracks.
Add the oleomargarine and mix well.
Cool and mark
Pour the mixture into a buttered pan to cool.
Mark in squares before it cools completely.
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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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 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
- Light brown sugar
- Provides the sweetness and the caramel flavour of the candy.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that helps the sugar form a brittle, clear candy rather than a grainy one.
- Oleomargarine
- Adds fat that gives the candy a smoother texture and a rich, buttery flavour.
The step that matters
Boil until it cracks. Sugar must reach the hard-crack stage so the candy sets brittle. Stopping early leaves it sticky and soft, while going too far can scorch it and turn it bitter.
“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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