Name: Nut Glaces
Ingredients: 6 lbs sugar; 1 qt water; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; ½ lb glucose; Nuts (pecan, English walnut, Brazil, almond, pineapple, cherry, almond paste balls, and macaroons)

Why it works: Walnut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Nut Glaces

Ingredients

6 lbs sugar
1 qt water
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ lb glucose
Nuts (pecan, English walnut, Brazil, almond, pineapple, cherry, almond paste balls, and macaroons)

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 syrup

In a large pot, combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar.
Cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches 300°F (150°C).
Slowly add glucose in a thin stream and cook to 300°F (150°C) again.

Glaze and cool

Remove from heat and drop in one nut at a time using a two-tine fork.
Place the coated nuts on a greased slab to cool.

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.

Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together993 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pineapple + cherrytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together537 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Almond + cherrytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together672 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together394 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Walnut + cherrytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together347 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Forms the syrup that hardens into the crisp glaze around each nut.
Glucose: Interferes with sugar crystallization, keeping the glaze smooth and less grainy.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar from crystallizing.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup to 300°F (150°C) the second time. Sugar syrup must reach the correct temperature to set into a hard, glassy coating. Too little cooking leaves the glaze sticky, while overcooking can make it brittle or cause it to darken and taste bitter.

Swap the nuts

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

Pistachiofits better
Brazil nutfits better
Macadamia nutfits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, walnut, almond, pineapple, cherry. 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.