Skip to main content
Dessert

Butter Taffy

A sweet candy made by cooking sugar, glucose, and butter to 300°F, then poured thin and cut into shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Butter Taffy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a kettle, combine the granulated sugar and glucose.

  2. Cook the mixture to 300°F (150°C).

  3. Add the butter and stir until melted.

  4. Pour the mixture onto a slab as thin as possible.

  5. Mark the taffy in a diamond shape using a caramel cutter.

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 + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

  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

Granulated sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and, when cooked, sets into a firm, brittle candy.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the taffy smooth and preventing grainy texture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the candy's texture and contributes rich flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture to 300°F (150°C). Sugar syrup sets according to its final temperature. Going too low leaves the taffy soft and sticky, while going too high makes it hard and brittle. Hitting the target temperature controls the final texture.

“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

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes