Name: Nonpareils, Any Color Desired
Ingredients: 20 lbs. coarse granulated sugar; 30 lbs. granulated sugar; 1 gallon water; 1 lb. beeswax; 1 lb. paraffin; 3 oz. vanilla

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Nonpareils, Any Color Desired

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Place 20 lbs. of coarse granulated sugar in a revolving pan and turn on steam to warm it.

Make and combine the coating

Cook 30 lbs. of sugar and 1 gallon of water to 236°F (113°C).
Slowly add the cooked sugar to the granulated sugar in a fine stream.
Mix color into the batch after cooking as desired.

Finish

In a finishing pan, combine with 1 lb. of beeswax and 1 lb. of paraffin until finished to your liking.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

Coarse granulated sugar: Forms the base crystals that the cooked sugar syrup coats.
Granulated sugar: Gets coated by the cooked syrup, building up the sugar layer.
Beeswax: Adds a glossy, protective finish to the sugar coating.
Paraffin: Adds a glossy, protective finish to the sugar coating.
Vanilla: Adds aroma and flavor to the finished nonpareils.

The step that matters

Cooking the sugar syrup to 236°F and adding it slowly. Cooking to 236°F sets the syrup's sugar concentration so it dries to a firm coating rather than staying sticky or turning grainy. Adding it in a fine stream spreads the syrup evenly over the granules, so they coat individually instead of clumping together.

“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.