Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry Taffy

A candy made by boiling sugar and glucose with strawberry coloring, then pulling onto a hook.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Strawberry and rose work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 56 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Strawberry Taffy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Boil water, glucose, and sugar at 265°F (130°C) in summer and 260°F (127°C) in winter.

  2. Ensure everything is spotlessly clean.

  3. Oil a marble slab and bars.

  4. Wash the kettle after pouring in the mixture.

  5. Cover the kettle while boiling until the thermometer shows 235°F (113°C).

Pour and pull

  1. Pour the mixture onto the oiled marble slab.

  2. Use a knife to turn the ends over as directed in previous instructions.

  3. Add 6 drops of red coloring to the mass before putting it on the hook, turning it over to avoid staining the slab.

  4. Finish pulling the taffy on the hook as you would for vanilla taffy.

  5. If the color is not bright enough, add a few more drops of coloring while pulling.

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. Strawberry + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sugar + strawberrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the taffy smooth and chewy.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk that sets the chewy texture as the mass cools.
Paraffin
Gives the finished taffy a glossy sheen and reduces stickiness.

The step that matters

Cooking to 235°F (113°C). The mixture's final temperature determines its firmness once cooled. Stopping early leaves the taffy soft and sticky, while cooking too far makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rose. 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.

You might also like

Strawberry Ice CreamStrawberry Ice Cream122 recipesStrawberry SherbetStrawberry Sherbet48 recipesStrawberry Water IceStrawberry Water Ice24 recipesStrawberry FoamStrawberry Foam7 recipes