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Dessert

Butter Cup Chews

A chewy candy made from sugar, glucose, butter, sweet cream, Nucoa butter, gelatin, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and gelatin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Butter Cup Chews

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine granulated sugar, glucose, butter, and sweet cream in a large pot.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 264°F (129°C).

  3. Remove the mixture from heat.

  4. Add Nucoa butter and dissolved gelatin to the mixture.

Pull and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto a slab and let it cool.

  2. Once cool, pull the mixture on a hook to stretch it.

  3. Color the mixture as desired.

  4. Flavor the mixture as desired.

  5. Pull the chews in front of a table furnace.

  6. Cut the chews using a butter cup 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. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. 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 main sweetness and, once cooked, the firm body of the chew.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the chews smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and dairy fat, contributing to a softer, creamier chew.
Gelatin
Adds elasticity so the cooked mass can be stretched and pulled.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture to 264°F (129°C). The final temperature sets how much water remains in the candy, which controls whether the chews come out soft and chewy or too hard or too sticky. Cooking past or short of the target changes the 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.

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