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 ↓
Spun Sugar Nests
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.
Prepare the wires
Twist a handle on one end of 12 to 15 pieces of common size wire and bend the loose ends down, separating them about 2 inches apart.
Make the sugar syrup
Combine sugar, cream of tartar, and water in a kettle, then cook until the mixture reaches 290°F (143°C).
Add glucose and continue cooking until it reaches 300°F (149°C).
Spin and shape
Set the kettle near a slab and place an empty chocolate case on the slab with a short iron bar on top.
Dip the wires into the sugar mixture and swing them up and down over the iron bar to create spun sugar.
Continue until you have a sufficient amount of spun sugar, then form it around a can to create nests.
Color the spun sugar as desired while working with it.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 structure of the spun threads as it cools and hardens.
- Glucose
- Inhibits crystallization, keeping the syrup smooth and the spun threads pliable.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar from crystallizing into grainy pieces.
The step that matters
Cooking the syrup to 300°F (149°C). Sugar syrup must reach the correct temperature to set into strong, glassy threads. Too low a temperature gives sticky, weak strands that will not hold their shape; too high risks browning or bitterness.
“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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