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 ↓
Spun Sugar Nests
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the wires
Twist a handle on one end of 12 to 15 pieces of common size wire.
Bend the loose ends down, separating them about 2 inches apart.
Make the syrup
Combine sugar, cream of tartar, and water in a kettle.
Cook the mixture to 290°F (143°C).
Add glucose to the mixture.
Continue cooking until it reaches 300°F (149°C).
Spin and shape
Set the kettle near a slab.
Place an empty chocolate case on the slab with a short iron bar on top.
Dip the wires into the sugar mixture.
Swing the wires up and down over the iron bar to create spun sugar.
Continue until you have a sufficient amount of spun sugar.
Form the spun sugar around a can to create nests.
Color the spun sugar as desired while working with it.
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 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 structure of the spun threads as it cools and hardens.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing into grainy texture.
- Glucose
- Interferes with sugar crystal formation, keeping the syrup smooth and pliable for spinning.
The step that matters
Cooking the syrup to 300°F (149°C). Syrup temperature controls its sugar concentration. Undercooked syrup stays too soft to form strong threads, while overcooked syrup turns brittle and darkens, so the target must be reached carefully.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.