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Dessert

Butter Dainties

A confection made from glucose, sugars, butter, flour, salt, oil, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Butter Dainties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 275°F (135°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the mixture

  1. In a large pot, combine glucose, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and flour.

  2. Cook the mixture to 275°F (135°C).

  3. Add salt and oil, along with the juice of one lemon.

Cool and shape

  1. Pour the mixture onto a slab and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, run it through a rolling pin to shape.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Glucose
Keeps the sugar mixture from crystallizing, giving a smooth, glassy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, along with a deeper caramel flavor.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture set firm as it cools.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a buttery flavor.
Flour
Provides structure so the cooked mixture holds its shape.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture to 275°F (135°C). Sugar mixtures set according to their final temperature. Undercooking leaves the candy soft and sticky, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle or darkens it too much.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour. 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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