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Dessert

Nut Bars, Assorted

A sweet confection made from sugar, glucose, nuts, and a pinch of salt, cooked into a firm bar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and brazil nut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Nut Bars, Assorted

Ingredients

Directions

Make the nut mixture

  1. In a large pot, combine sugar, glucose, and enough water to dissolve the sugar.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it reaches 290°F (143°C).

  3. Stir in as many nuts as you can mix in well.

  4. Remove from heat and pour the mixture through a sieve to drain excess liquid.

Shape and cut

  1. Spread the mixture evenly on a greased surface and roll it out to a level thickness.

  2. Cut into bars while still warm.

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. Almond + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Brazil nut + walnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pecans + brazil nuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Pecans + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (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, hard candy base that binds the nuts together as it cools.
Glucose
Stops the sugar from crystallising, keeping the set mixture smooth rather than grainy.
Assorted nuts
Provide the crunch and flavour that fill the candy base.

The step that matters

Cooking to 290°F (143°C). Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set into a brittle, crisp bar once cooled. Undercooked syrup stays sticky and soft, while overcooked syrup turns bitter and dark.

Swap the filbert

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nuts, almond, pecans, brazil nut, walnut, peanut):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nuts, almond, pecans, brazil nut, walnut, peanut. 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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