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Dessert

Maple Fudge

Maple fudge is a sweet confection made from white sugar, maple sugar, glucose, cream or milk, butter, and optionally nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Maple Fudge

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Maple Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 238°F (114°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Combine white sugar, maple sugar, glucose, cream, and butter in a kettle.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it reaches 238°F (114°C).

  3. If desired, add a handful of pecans or English walnuts just before pouring it out.

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.

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.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + pecanstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and, once cooked, the firm crystalline structure of the fudge.
Maple sugar
Adds maple flavour and sweetness while contributing to the fudge's overall sugar balance.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystallisation, helping the fudge stay smooth rather than grainy.
Cream
Supplies fat and milk solids that give the fudge a rich, soft texture.

The step that matters

Cooking to 238°F (114°C). The sugar concentration at this temperature determines how firm the fudge sets. Undercooking leaves it soft and runny, while overcooking makes it hard and crumbly.

Swap the pecans

The recipe marks pecans as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Filbertfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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