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Imitation Bonbon Ribbons

A candy ribbon made by boiling sugar with water and vinegar, then cooling, working, and pulling into glassy strands.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Imitation Bonbon Ribbons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sugar

  1. Break the sugar into small lumps and place in a sugar boiler with cold water and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches the crack stage, wiping the sides of the boiler with a wet sponge to prevent discoloration.

  3. Pour the boiled sugar onto a marble slab greased with oil of almonds.

Work and shape

  1. Once cooled enough to touch, use two knives to work the sugar until it becomes glossy and glassy.

  2. When cool enough to handle, pull the sugar with oiled hands until it resembles bright shining glass or spun silk.

  3. Divide the sugar into three or four pieces for helpers to twist into ribbons.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Vinegar + almondtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Finest loaf sugar
Forms the glassy candy structure as it is boiled to the crack stage.
White wood vinegar (pyroligneous acid)
Acidity helps keep the boiled sugar from crystallising, keeping it smooth and glossy.

The step that matters

Wiping the sides of the boiler with a wet sponge. Sugar crystals clinging to the pan walls can fall back into the boiling syrup and trigger graining, and wiping them away keeps the candy clear and prevents discoloration.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Soybeanfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar. 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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