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Dessert

Sea Foam Kisses

Sea Foam Kisses are a sugar candy made with lemon juice, nuts, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pecans and coconut work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 394 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Sea Foam Kisses

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the syrup

  1. Boil sugar, water, and lemon juice in a kettle until it reaches a medium ball stage.

  2. Pour the mixture onto a clean platter, ensuring no grease is present.

Stir and rest

  1. Once cool, stir vigorously with a wooden paddle until it becomes dry and forms a ball.

  2. Cover with a wet cloth and let it sit for 30 minutes.

  3. Mash down the mixture with your hands.

Finish and shape

  1. Melt half of the cream in a double boiler, stirring constantly.

  2. Once melted, add the beaten white of one egg and fold it in, then beat well.

  3. Add vanilla and nut meats to the mixture.

  4. Using a tablespoon and a fork, scoop the candy and shape it on waxed paper.

  5. You can create different flavors and colors as desired.

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. Pecans + coconuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pecans + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

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

  3. Coconut + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the crystalline candy structure and provides most of the sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar syrup from crystallising too coarsely.
Cream (in the method)
Adds fat and softness, giving the candy a smoother, creamier texture.
Egg white (in the method)
Traps air when beaten, adding lightness and structure to the mixture.
Nut meats
Add crunch and contrast to the soft, creamy candy.

The step that matters

Let the cooked syrup cool before stirring. Stirring while the syrup is still hot makes large sugar crystals form, giving a grainy texture. Letting it cool undisturbed lets fine crystals form when stirred, producing a smooth, creamy candy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, meat, pecans, coconut, chocolate):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, meat, pecans, coconut, chocolate. 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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