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Maple Walnuts

A sweet treat of walnuts coated in maple syrup and set with a stiff egg‑white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,035 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Maple Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg white to a stiff froth.

  2. Stir in enough powdered sugar to achieve a stiff frosting consistency.

  3. In a saucepan, boil the maple sugar and water for 2-3 minutes to create a syrup.

  4. Dip the walnut meats in the syrup.

  5. Press some of the frosting between the two halves of the walnut and let it harden.

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 + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped to a stiff froth, it forms the airy frosting that binds the walnut halves.
Powdered sugar
Stiffens the whipped egg white into a frosting that holds its shape and sets firm.
Maple sugar
Boiled with water into a syrup that gives the walnuts their maple sweetness and flavor.
Walnut meats
Form the crunchy base that is dipped in syrup and filled with frosting.

The step that matters

Boiling the maple syrup. Boiling for only the stated 2-3 minutes sets the syrup's concentration; boiling too long can make it crystallize or harden too much, while too short leaves it thin and sticky.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Nutsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, meat. 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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