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Dessert

Honey-comb Chips

A sweet candy made by cooking sugar, glucose, water, butter, and molasses, then shaping into thin strips and coating with vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Honey-comb Chips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut one handle off a rolling pin that is about two feet long and three inches in diameter.

Make the candy

  1. In a kettle, combine sugar, glucose, and water. Cook over heat until it reaches 300°F (150°C).

  2. Add butter and molasses, then remove from heat and pour onto a greased slab.

  3. Knead the mixture well while wearing gloves, then pull it into a long piece around the rolling pin.

  4. Dust the rolling pin with starch, place it in the center of the batch, and roll the batch around the pin.

  5. Quickly fold the ends of the batch over the pin and have a helper pull it out.

  6. Continue pulling and folding the batch until it is long and thin, then cut into one-inch strips.

Finish

  1. Dip the strips in vanilla coating and let them cool.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Molasses + vanillatop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together732 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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 crisp, brittle structure of the candy as it cooks to a hard set.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep flavor, and a slight acidity to the candy.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and a tender bite in the finished candy.

The step that matters

Cooking the sugar syrup to 300°F (150°C). Sugar must reach the hard-crack stage to set brittle. Undercooking leaves it sticky, while overcooking can scorch it and give a bitter taste.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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