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Dessert

Butter Scotch Squares

A caramel candy made with sugar, glucose, water, salt, butter, and vanilla, cooled and cut into squares.

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

Butter Scotch Squares

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the caramel

  1. In a large pot, combine sugar, glucose, and water.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 300°F (150°C).

  3. Add salt and butter, stirring quickly until the butter dissolves.

  4. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract.

Shape and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto a flat surface.

  2. Spread it as thin as possible.

  3. Use a caramel cutter to mark the surface both ways.

  4. Once cooled, break apart into squares.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Sugar
Forms the bulk of the candy and sets into a hard, brittle glass as it cools.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the candy smooth and preventing grainy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavour and a softer bite in the finished candy.

The step that matters

Cooking to 300°F (150°C). Sugar's final texture depends on how much water is driven off. Stopping short leaves the candy soft and sticky, while overcooking makes it bitter and prone to burning.

“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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