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Dessert

Cream Nut Squares

A candy made from sugar, glucose, fondant, hickory nuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cream Nut Squares

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a kettle, combine 5 pounds of sugar and 1 pound of glucose.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 236°F (113°C).

  3. Remove from heat and stir in 5 pounds of dipping fondant until fully dissolved.

Set and cut

  1. Add 2½ pounds of hickory nut meats and flavor with vanilla extract.

  2. Pour the mixture into a box or tray lined with wafer paper.

  3. Once cooled, cut into squares and allow to crystallize.

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

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

  2. Meat + vanillatop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 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

Sugar
Forms the main body of the candy and sets firm as it cools.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystal formation, keeping the candy smoother and less grainy.
Dipping fondant
Adds creamy sugar crystals that give the candy a soft, tender texture.
Hickory nut meats
Adds nutty flavor and a crunchy bite against the soft candy.

The step that matters

Cooking to 236°F (113°C). This temperature sets the sugar concentration that determines how firm the candy becomes once cooled. Undercooking leaves it soft and sticky, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, meat. 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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