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Dessert

Cream Taffy

A sweet confection made by boiling sugar, glucose, cream, and butter to hard crack stage, then poured, cooled, folded, and cut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Taffy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 240°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the syrup

  1. In a large pot, combine the sugar, glucose, and cream or milk.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches the soft ball stage (about 240°F or 115°C).

  3. Add the butter and stir until well mixed.

  4. Continue boiling until it reaches the hard crack stage (about 300°F or 150°C).

Pour and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto an oiled slab.

  2. Once cool, fold in the edges and cut 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and, as it cooks, sets into the firm, chewy body of the taffy.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the taffy smooth rather than grainy.
Cream or rich milk
Adds milk solids and fat that soften the texture and give a creamy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, less brittle texture and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Continue boiling to the hard crack stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set firm once cooled. Stopping early leaves a soft, sticky taffy, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle.

“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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