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Dessert

Fluffy Ruffles or Divinity Fudge

A fudge made with sugar, water, corn syrup, walnuts, almonds, eggs, vanilla, and salted almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fluffy Ruffles or Divinity Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fudge base

  1. Combine two cups sugar, one-half cup water, one-half cup corn syrup, and a pinch of salt.

  2. Cook the mixture without stirring until it forms a hard ball in water, much harder than fudge but not brittle.

  3. Pour the mixture slowly into beaten whites of two eggs, stirring constantly until thick.

  4. Add a teaspoonful of vanilla and all one pound chopped walnuts.

Prepare and brown the almonds

  1. Shell, blanch, and dry half a pound of almonds.

  2. Heat a tablespoon of butter or olive oil in a chafing dish, then add the almonds.

  3. Cook the almonds to a delicate brown, shaking the dish constantly and stirring often to prevent burning.

  4. Drain the almonds and dry them on soft paper, then sprinkle with fine salt.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

237Calories
10 gProtein
10 gFat
31 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 8 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Corn1/2 cup kernels (82g)77
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Syrupnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  5. Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet bulk of the candy and sets firm as the syrup cooks to a hard ball.
Corn syrup
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
Eggs
Whites beaten into the hot syrup create an airy, light texture.
Walnuts
Add crunch and body to the fudge once folded into the set mixture.
Almonds
Toast to a delicate brown, adding nutty aroma and crisp texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the syrup without stirring. Stirring while sugar syrup cooks can trigger crystallization, making the candy grainy. The syrup must reach the hard-ball stage, so the temperature decides the final texture; going too far makes it brittle.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, corn, syrup, almond, egg):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, syrup, almond, egg. 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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