Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Old-fashioned White Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a saucepan, combine cold water, granulated sugar, and cream of tartar.
Cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches a brittle stage.
Remove from heat and let it cool.
Pull and finish
Pull the candy for at least 30 minutes until it becomes smooth and glossy.
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Provides the sweetness and forms the candy's structure as the syrup cooks and sets.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that helps prevent large sugar crystals, keeping the candy smooth.
The step that matters
Pulling the candy. Pulling works air into the cooling sugar and encourages many tiny crystals to form. Done for too short a time, the candy stays dense, grainy, or dull instead of smooth and glossy.
“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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