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Flaxseed Tablets

A sweet confection made from sugar syrup and flaxseed, shaped into tablets.

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 ↓

Flaxseed Tablets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 310°F (154°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the sugar

  1. Combine sugar and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook until the mixture reaches 310°F (154°C).

Add flaxseed and shape

  1. Pour the hot mixture onto a slab and immediately add the flaxseed.

  2. Knead the mixture thoroughly until it cools down.

  3. Once cool, run the mixture through flat tablet rollers to shape into tablets.

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 + flaxseedtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + flaxseedtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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, sweet mass as it cooks and cools.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.

The step that matters

Cooking to 310°F (154°C). The sugar's final temperature decides its texture once cooled. Stopping early leaves a soft, sticky candy that will not hold its shape, while overcooking produces a bitter, scorched flavor.

Swap the flaxseed

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Flaxseedthe 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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