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Vanilla Syrup Candy

A sweet candy made from syrup, sugar, butter, glycerine, baking soda, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Vanilla Syrup Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine syrup, sugar, butter, and glycerine in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture, testing it in cold water as it thickens.

  3. Just before removing from heat, stir in baking soda.

Pour, pull and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered pans.

  2. Once partly cool, drizzle vanilla extract on top and pull the candy as you would molasses candy.

  3. Allow to cool completely before cutting into pieces.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Syrup + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Syrup
Provides the sugary base that sets into a chewy candy texture.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps form the candy's crystalline structure as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot syrup to lighten the candy and make it more tender.
Glycerine
Keeps the candy soft and moist by resisting crystallization.

The step that matters

Testing in cold water as the mixture boils. Sugar syrup changes texture sharply as its concentration rises, so the cold-water test shows when it has reached the right stage. Removing it too early leaves a sticky candy, and too late makes it 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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