Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓
The Caramel
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sugar until it reaches the 'Great Crack' stage.
Add a few drops of lemon juice to prevent graining.
Boil the syrup until it turns yellow.
Remove the pan from heat and place it in a dish of cold water to prevent burning.
Add a small piece of butter to smooth the syrup and prevent it from rising over the sides.
Optionally, add a little cream of tartar to prevent candying.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that caramelises into the colour and flavour of the caramel.
- Lemon juice
- Its acid helps keep the sugar from recrystallising into grainy crystals.
- Butter
- Adds fat that smooths the syrup and reduces its tendency to foam up over the pan.
- Cream of tartar
- Its acid helps prevent the syrup from turning into hard, crystallised candy.
The step that matters
Stop the cooking at the right colour. Sugar darkens quickly once it starts to brown, and it keeps cooking from residual heat in the pan. Removing the pan from heat and cooling it in cold water stops the caramelisation, so the syrup does not burn and turn bitter.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, butter, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, butter, 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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