Name: Nut Glaces
Ingredients: 6 cups sugar; 1 quart water; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; ½ pound glucose; Nuts (pecans, English walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds, or cherries)

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 ↓

Nut Glaces

Ingredients

6 cups sugar
1 quart water
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ pound glucose
Nuts (pecans, English walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds, or cherries)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

In a large pot, combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar.
Cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches 300°F (150°C).
Slowly add glucose in a thin stream while stirring.
Cook again until it reaches 300°F (150°C).
Remove from heat.

Coat the nuts

Drop in one nut at a time using a two‑tine fork and place on a greased slab to cool.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together886 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,228 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Forms the sweet syrup that hardens into the glossy glaze coating the nuts.
Glucose: Interferes with sugar crystallization, keeping the glaze smooth and glossy rather than grainy.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.
Nuts: Provide the core filling that the hardened sugar coating encases.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to 300°F (150°C). Sugar syrup must reach the correct temperature to set into a hard, brittle glaze when cooled. Undercooked syrup stays sticky and soft, while overcooked syrup turns bitter or brown. Stirring should stop once the sugar dissolves to avoid crystallization.