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Dessert

Yorkshire Toffee

A caramel confection made from glucose, sugars, cream, butter, and lemon extract, cooked to toffee consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Yorkshire Toffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the toffee

  1. In a kettle, combine glucose, white sugar, yellow sugar, and cream.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 250°F (120°C).

  3. Add butter and lemon extract, then continue cooking until it reaches 260°F (127°C).

  4. Pour the mixture onto a greased slab to a thickness of caramels.

Finish

  1. Once set, cut into 2x4 inch pieces.

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 + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Glucose
Keeps the sugar syrup smooth and resists crystallisation, giving a fine, chewy texture.
White sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves into the syrup to build the toffee's body as it cooks.
Yellow sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour through its slight molasses content.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, producing a softer, richer texture in the set toffee.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the cooked mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking to 260°F (127°C). Final temperature controls how firm the toffee sets. Too low gives a soft, sticky result; too high makes it hard or brittle. Pouring only after reaching the target matters.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter. 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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