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Dessert

North Pole Candy

A candy made by mixing egg yolks with maraschino, boiling clarified sugar, and forming threads that are dried and optionally garnished with pistachios.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

North Pole Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the threads

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a small pan with a spoon.

  2. Pour in the maraschino.

  3. Stir until it becomes creamy.

  4. Boil the clarified sugar until it reaches a blow stage.

  5. Use a funnel to pour the mixture into the boiling sugar.

  6. Allow the mixture to form threads.

  7. Remove the pan from the heat.

  8. Use a fork to take out the threads.

Dry and finish

  1. Place the threads on a grating in small heaps, about the size of a half-crown.

  2. Dry the heaps in a stove for several hours.

  3. Candy the threads as desired.

  4. Cover and finish them.

  5. Optionally, add finely cut pistachios for decoration.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + pistachiotop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

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

  3. Egg + pistachiotop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Provide richness and body, thickening the mixture as it is stirred and cooked.
Clarified sugar
Forms the threads as it cooks to a blow stage, giving the candy its structure and sweetness.
Maraschino
Adds liquid and a distinct cherry-like aroma to the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the clarified sugar until it reaches a blow stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to form threads that hold their shape. Too little cooking leaves the candy soft and sticky, while too much makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the pistachio

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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