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Glace Nuts

Candied nuts made by boiling sugar syrup with cream of tartar and coating nuts until brittle.

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 ↓

Glace Nuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Wipe down the sides of the pan with a cloth dampened in cold water.

  4. Boil continuously without stirring until the syrup is brittle and clear when dropped in ice water.

  5. Place the saucepan in hot water, tilting it slightly.

Coat and set the nuts

  1. Drop in the prepared nuts one at a time, using a fork to lift them out.

  2. Place the coated nuts on oil paper to harden.

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 + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 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 syrup that hardens into a brittle, glassy candy coating as it cools.
Cream of tartar
Its acid helps stop the sugar from crystallising, keeping the syrup smooth and clear.
Nuts
Provide the main bulk and crunch, with the syrup coating and sealing each piece.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until brittle. Stirring can trigger sugar crystals that make the syrup grainy. The syrup must reach the hard-crack stage, tested in ice water, to set brittle. Stopping too early leaves it sticky, while overcooking can scorch it.

Swap the nuts

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

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