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Italian Cream Fudge

A sweet fudge made with light brown sugar, granulated sugar, milk, butter, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Italian Cream Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine the light brown sugar, granulated sugar, milk, and butter.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.

Beat and set

  1. Remove from heat and beat the mixture until it becomes creamy.

  2. Stir in the nuts and mix well.

  3. Pour into a greased dish and let it cool before cutting 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and a soft, chewy depth of flavor.
Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the sugar structure that sets the fudge.
Milk
Dissolves the sugars and adds creaminess through its fat and milk proteins.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and rich flavor.
Nuts
Add crunch and a contrasting texture to the smooth fudge.

The step that matters

Cooking to the soft-ball stage. Sugar concentration at the soft-ball stage controls how firm the fudge sets. Undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking makes it hard and grainy.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Cocoafits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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