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Italian Fudge

A fudge made with honey, almonds, pecans, cinnamon, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Italian Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the fudge

  1. In a saucepan, combine honey, chopped almonds, chopped pecans, powdered cinnamon, and chocolate.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

  3. Pour the thick mixture into a buttered tin.

Shape and dry

  1. Once cool, roll it out on a board sprinkled with powdered sugar.

  2. Cut into blocks and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a short time to dry.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

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

  3. Pecans + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pecans + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

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

  5. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps bind the nuts together as it thickens.
Chopped almonds
Provide bulk and crunch, giving the fudge its body and texture.
Chopped pecans
Add crunch and a rich, toasty nut flavour to the fudge.
Chocolate
Adds richness and fat, plus a deep flavour that pairs with the nuts.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it thickens. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the honey's sugars, so the mixture sets firm when cool. Stopping too early leaves it soft and sticky, while overcooking can make it hard and brittle.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, almond, cinnamon, chocolate):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Flaxseedfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, almond, cinnamon, chocolate. 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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