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 ↓
Butter-scotch
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mixture
Combine three cupfuls of white sugar, half a cupful of water, half a cupful of vinegar, half a teaspoonful of cream of tartar, a tablespoonful of butter, and eight drops of extract of lemon.
Boil the mixture without stirring until it snaps and breaks.
Just before removing from the heat, add a quarter teaspoonful of soda.
Pour and cut
Pour the mixture into well-buttered biscuit tins, making it a quarter of an inch thick.
When partly cold, mark off into inch squares.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Cream | 1 tbsp (15ml) heavy | 51 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Vinegar | 1 tbsp (15ml) distilled | 3 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
-
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 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
- White sugar
- Forms the bulk of the candy and sets into a brittle, glassy structure when cooked.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps prevent sugar from crystallising, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
- Vinegar
- Acid that partly breaks down sugar, adding tang and helping keep the texture smooth.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and softens the bite slightly.
- Soda
- Reacts with the acid to release gas, making the candy lighter and more brittle.
The step that matters
Boiling without stirring until it snaps and breaks. Stirring can trigger sugar crystals that make the candy grainy. The mixture must reach the hard, brittle stage, because undercooked sugar stays chewy and sticky instead of snapping cleanly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cream, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, 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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