Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Fondant
Ingredients
Directions
Make the creams
For dipping cream, mix sugar with a small amount of glucose or cream of tartar.
For center creams, add 4 ounces of glucose to each pound of sugar and boil slightly higher.
Warm, color and flavor
Warm the dipping cream in a double kettle, stirring gently until soft enough to cover fruits or nut pastes.
Color and flavor the creams as desired.
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the sweet base that sets into the fine crystals of fondant.
- Glucose
- Interferes with sugar crystal growth, keeping the fondant smooth and soft rather than grainy.
The step that matters
Boiling the center creams. The boiling temperature controls how much water remains in the sugar syrup. Boiling slightly higher leaves less water, so the cream sets firmer; boiling too little leaves it soft and sticky.
“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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