Name: Flaxseed Tablets
Ingredients: 10 lbs sugar; 2 quarts water; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; ¼ lb flaxseed

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 ↓

Flaxseed Tablets

Ingredients

10 lbs sugar
2 quarts water
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ lb flaxseed

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine sugar and water in a large pot.
Add cream of tartar and cook the mixture until it reaches 310°F (154°C).

Shape the tablets

Pour the cooked mixture onto a slab.
Add flaxseed to the mixture and knead well until it is cool.
Run the kneaded mixture through flat tablet rollers.

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 + flaxseedtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Sugar + flaxseedtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together233 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, hard candy base once cooked to temperature.
Cream of tartar: Acidity that helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.
Flaxseed: Adds the seed texture and nutty flavor that the tablets are built around.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture to 310°F (154°C). Sugar candy sets according to its final temperature. Too little cooking leaves the tablets soft and sticky, while overcooking makes them brittle and prone to scorching, so the temperature must be reached accurately.