Why it works: Sugar and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,908 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
To Make Barley Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the syrup
Boil 1 pound of loaf sugar in ½ cup of water over low heat for 30 minutes.
Skim off any scum that forms on the surface.
Test the mixture by dropping a small amount into cold water.
Shape and finish
Once ready, pour it onto a stone surface.
Do not pull the mixture; instead, shape it into long sticks.
Clean the sticks with vinegar and rum.
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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Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,908 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Vinegar + rumtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together82 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loaf sugar
- Dissolves and cooks into a hard, glassy candy that sets as it cools, giving sweetness.
The step that matters
Test the mixture in cold water. A drop in cold water shows whether the syrup has reached the hard-crack stage. Cooked too little, the candy stays sticky; cooked too far, it turns bitter and brown.
“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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