Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Fudge
Ingredients
Directions
Combine sugar, Carnation Milk, water, and cream of tartar in a saucepan and stir thoroughly.
Place the saucepan on the stove and boil slowly.
When nearly done, add chocolate and continue cooking until the candy forms a soft ball when dipped in cold water.
Remove from heat and let it partially cool.
Stir vigorously.
Pour the mixture into a greased pan.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,466 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the structure as it crystallizes when cooled.
- Carnation milk
- Adds milk solids and fat for a creamy, smooth texture.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent large sugar crystals from forming.
- Chocolate
- Adds chocolate flavor and richness to the fudge.
The step that matters
Let the mixture partially cool before stirring vigorously. Stirring while the syrup is still hot causes large sugar crystals to form, producing a grainy texture. Cooling first lets the syrup thicken so that stirring forms many tiny crystals, giving smooth fudge.
“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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