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 ↓
Cream Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil sugar, water, and cream of tartar until a drop forms a soft ball in ice water.
Stir once when boiling, then do not stir again.
Pour and work the candy
Pour into a dish without scraping the saucepan or leaving a spoon in it.
When it is blood-warm, stir until it turns white.
Once too stiff for a spoon, work it with your hands until it resembles firm lard.
Store and finish
Cover with waxed paper to store for weeks.
If it doesn't cut easily when cold, reboil with minimal water (1-2 tablespoons).
Color with cochineal or spinach juice as desired.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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).
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Cream + spinachtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,130 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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Sugar + spinachtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,033 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the sweet crystalline body of the candy as it cools and sets.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that limits large sugar crystals, keeping the candy smooth and creamy.
The step that matters
Pour without scraping the saucepan. Sugar crystals clinging to the pan or spoon can seed crystallization in the cooled syrup, making the candy grainy instead of smooth. Stirring after boiling has the same risk, so leave the syrup alone once it has been stirred once.
Swap the spinach
The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Leekfits about as well
- Spinachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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