Why it works: Sugar and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,147 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Walnut Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
In a copper kettle, combine glucose, sugar, grease, and water.
Set on the furnace and mix with a paddle.
When the mixture starts to boil, insert a thermometer and cook to 300°F (150°C).
Once at 300°F (150°C), remove the thermometer and add walnut pieces and salt.
Stir until thoroughly mixed and dump onto a well-greased slab.
Shape
Manipulate the mixture as you would for pecan fritters.
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.
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Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,147 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Glucose
- Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
- Sugar
- Provides the sweetness and the bulk of the candy structure as it cooks.
- Walnut pieces
- Add crunch and nutty flavor throughout the set mixture.
- Grease
- Adds fat that softens the candy's texture and helps it release from the slab.
The step that matters
Cooking to 300°F (150°C). Sugar syrup set at this temperature has little water left, so it hardens into brittle candy when cooled. Undercooked syrup stays sticky, and overcooked syrup turns bitter or scorches.
“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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