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Dessert

Favorite Fudge

A sweet confection made from sugar, glucose, water, condensed milk, and cream fondant, optionally flavored and topped with nuts or fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Favorite Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, glucose, and water. Bring to a boil.

  2. Slowly add the condensed milk without stopping the boil.

  3. Continue boiling until it reaches the medium ball stage.

Finish the fudge

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the cream fondant until melted.

  2. Add flavoring and nuts or fruit if desired.

Set and mark

  1. Let the mixture stand for about 5 hours.

  2. Mark the fudge with a sharp knife by drawing it across the surface quickly.

  3. If the fudge is too soft, place it in a dry, warm area for a while.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + condensed milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Condensed milk + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together416 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

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

  5. Condensed milk + nutstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet, firm body of the fudge as it crystallizes during cooling.
Glucose
Interferes with large sugar crystals, helping the fudge stay smooth rather than grainy.
Condensed milk
Adds milk solids and fat for a creamy, soft texture and rich flavor.
Soft center cream fondant
Adds fine sugar crystals that encourage a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Continue boiling until it reaches the medium ball stage. The final sugar concentration, set by the cooking temperature, determines firmness. Stopping early leaves the fudge too soft to hold its shape, while overcooking makes it hard and crumbly.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, condensed milk, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, condensed milk, cream. 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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