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Dessert

Pulled Candies

A candy made by boiling sugar and water, then pulling the mixture until it turns white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Pulled Candies

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the sugar

  1. Boil the sugar and water in a pot over high heat without stirring.

  2. After 15 minutes, add the dissolved cream of tartar.

  3. Cover the pot, removing the lid only to skim or check the boiling.

  4. Continue boiling until it reaches the soft crack stage.

Cool and pull

  1. Pour the mixture onto a cool surface to let it cool down.

  2. Once cool enough to handle, pull the candy until it turns pure white.

  3. Dust a clean, dry surface with fine sugar and place the candy on it.

  4. Add flavoring just before pouring out to cool or while pulling.

  5. For chocolate flavor, incorporate melted chocolate while pulling.

  6. For Ice Cream Candy, stir in butter just before removing from heat.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Forms the candy itself, providing sweetness and the crystal structure that sets it.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing too early, so the candy stays smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, creamier texture in the Ice Cream Candy version.

The step that matters

Continue boiling until the soft crack stage. Boiling concentrates the sugar, and the final temperature determines the candy's texture. Stopping too early leaves it sticky, while going too far makes it hard and brittle.

“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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