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Dessert

Nut Squares

Nut Squares are a sweet confection made by cooking sugar with assorted nuts, then cooling and cutting into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and brazil nut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Nut Squares

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine 5 pounds of sugar with a selection of nuts such as almonds, pecans, filberts, English walnuts, and Brazil nuts in a kettle.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the nuts are well coated.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pan and allow it to cool before cutting into squares.

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. Almond + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Walnut + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pecans + brazil nuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Pecans + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Melts into a syrup that coats the nuts and sets into a firm, brittle binder as it cools.
Almonds
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor once coated and set in the sugar.
Pecans
Add crunch and a rich, buttery flavor once coated and set in the sugar.
Filberts
Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor once coated and set in the sugar.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a slightly bitter, earthy flavor once coated and set in the sugar.
Brazil nuts
Add crunch and a rich, oily flavor once coated and set in the sugar.

The step that matters

Cooking the sugar until it dissolves. Heat must dissolve the sugar fully and coat the nuts evenly; undissolved sugar can leave grainy patches, and uneven coating makes the squares crumble or hold together poorly once cooled.

Swap the filbert

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, almond, pecans, walnut, brazil nut):

  1. Cashew nutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, pecans, walnut, brazil nut. 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.

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