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Dessert

Texas Pecan Cakes

A sweet cake made from sugar, glucose, water, pecans, and a pinch of sea salt, cooked to 290°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Texas Pecan Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 290°F (143°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, cream of tartar, glucose, and water in a large pot.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 290°F (143°C).

Add pecans and shape

  1. Add a pinch of coarse sea salt and as many pecans as the mixture can hold.

  2. Pour the mixture onto a slab and pinch off small pieces, about 2 oz each.

  3. Shape each piece into a round, thin cake, varying the sizes for a homely appearance.

  4. Make these in small batches to ensure freshness.

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. Cream + pecanstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + pecanstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,962 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 candy base and provides the sweetness and set of the cakes.
Cream of tartar
Its acidity helps keep the sugar from crystallizing, so the candy stays smooth.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystal formation, keeping the candy smooth and less grainy.
Pecans
Add nutty flavor and crunchy texture to the candy.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture to 290°F (143°C). Sugar candy sets according to its final temperature. Stopping early leaves the cakes soft and sticky, while overcooking makes them hard and brittle.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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