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Dessert

Honey Oomb Made on Hook Only

A sugar candy made by boiling sugar and water, adding cream of tartar, baking soda, and pulling the mixture on a hook.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Honey Oomb Made on Hook Only

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a large pot.

  2. Add cream of tartar.

  3. Cook the mixture until it reaches 320°F (160°C).

Pull and shape

  1. Pour the cooked mixture onto a slab.

  2. Fold the mixture up.

  3. Add baking soda.

  4. Flavor and color the mixture to your preference on the slab.

  5. Pull the mixture on a hook until it is nicely pulled.

  6. Form long pieces about 4 feet long and 1½ inches thick.

  7. Cut each piece.

  8. Hang them on nails to cool.

  9. Scratch each piece to your desired length.

  10. Break apart.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the main body of the candy and, once cooked, sets into a brittle, glassy texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent crystallization so the candy stays smooth.
Baking soda
Releases gas into the hot, cooked sugar, making it puff and turn light and airy when pulled.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it reaches 320°F (160°C). The final temperature controls the sugar's moisture and hardness. Undercooked syrup stays sticky and will not set firm, while overcooked syrup becomes brittle and bitter.

“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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