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 ↓
How to Cast Fondant Into Bonbons
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the starch molds
Fill starch boards with very dry and fine starch and print with regular starch molds.
Fasten molds to strips of wood using a paste made from glucose and starch.
Make the fondant cream
To make the cream, dissolve sugar in water over a strong fire, stirring until melted.
Wash down the sides of the kettle, add cream of tartar, and cook to 238°F (114°C).
Add glucose, allow to boil briefly, then pour onto a wet slab and sprinkle with cold water.
When cool, work with a cream scraper until smooth.
Fill and set the bonbons
Melt fondant in a double boiler over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.
Do not let it boil to maintain a soft, creamy texture.
Pour a portion into a funnel dropper and keep the rest warm beside the fire.
Fill the impressions made in the starch with the melted fondant.
Set the boards aside until the next day.
Scoop out the fondant on a sieve, sift and dust off the starch.
Melt the cream in a double boiler, add cream of tartar, and it's ready to run into molds.
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.
-
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 crystalline base of the fondant once dissolved and cooked.
- Glucose
- Interferes with sugar crystallisation, keeping the fondant smooth and soft.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps prevent sugar from crystallising, keeping the fondant smooth.
The step that matters
Do not let the fondant boil after melting. Boiling the melted fondant again can cause sugar to crystallise, making it grainy instead of soft and creamy. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the texture smooth.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.