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Dessert

Immense Chewing Taffy

A large chewy taffy made by cooking sugar, water, and cream of tartar, then adding molasses and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Immense Chewing Taffy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. In a large pot, combine sugar and water with cream of tartar.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 258°F to 260°F.

Pull and cut

  1. Pour the cooked mixture onto a slab and pull it until it is thin and flat, about 1½ inches wide.

  2. Cut the taffy into 2½ inch lengths and wrap each piece in wax paper.

Add molasses flavor

  1. For molasses flavor, add 1 quart of New Orleans molasses and 1 lb of butter after cooking to 290°F, then stir and cook to 254°F in cool weather or 260°F in warm weather.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Sugar
Forms the main structure and sweetness of the taffy as it cooks and sets.
New orleans molasses
Adds deep, rich flavor and a dark color.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a richer mouthfeel.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.

The step that matters

Cooking to the target temperature. Sugar syrup's texture depends on its final temperature, since more water boils off as it heats. Stopping too early leaves the taffy soft and sticky, while going too far makes it hard and brittle. Cool and warm weather also change the target, so the molasses stage needs care.

“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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