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Dessert

Fudge V

A chocolate fudge made with butter, milk, sugar, cocoa or chocolate, and vanilla, cooked until thick and poured into a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Fudge V

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fudge

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the milk and sugar; stir until the sugar is dissolved.

  3. Add the cocoa or chocolate and heat to boiling.

  4. Boil for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  5. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract.

  6. Beat until creamy, then pour into a buttered pan.

Set and cut

  1. Cool and cut into squares.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Dissolves into the milk and cooks down to form the fudge's sweet, firm body.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk solids that give the fudge a soft, creamy texture.
Cocoa or chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the fudge.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the fudge smooth and rich in texture.

The step that matters

Boil for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sugar syrup can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred, and the boiling time controls how much water evaporates. This sets how firm the fudge becomes as it cools.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

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