Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓
Stick Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar with water until it reaches the hard crack stage.
Dissolve the cream of tartar in a little hot water and add it at the soft ball stage.
Keep the kettle covered and boil over a brisk fire.
Add flavor and color before pouring out to cool if you want clear sticks.
Pour and shape
Pour the mixture into well buttered tins to cool.
Work the candy while still soft; it stiffens quickly when cold.
Shape the candy into a thick, round form on a smooth, level surface.
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.
-
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
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
- White sugar
- Forms the sweet body of the candy and sets hard as the syrup cools.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps prevent crystallization, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
The step that matters
Work the candy while still soft. Once the cooked sugar cools it stiffens quickly, so shaping must happen promptly. Waiting too long makes the candy too hard to form into sticks.
“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.
More stick candy recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.