Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Nuts Glace
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar, boiling water, and cream of tartar in a saucepan.
Heat until the syrup changes color slightly and hardens in cold water.
If the syrup hardens, place the pan in hot water to soften it.
Coat the nuts
Dip the nut meats into the syrup.
Lift them out with a spoon and lay them on waxed paper.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + meattop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,248 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,866 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
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the syrup that hardens into the glossy, brittle coating on the nuts.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps keep the syrup smooth and prevents sugar crystallizing.
- Nut meats
- The core being coated; the syrup sets around them as a crisp shell.
The step that matters
Heating the syrup to the hard-crack stage. The syrup must change color only slightly and harden in cold water. Heating too far makes it brittle and dark, while stopping too early leaves a sticky coating that will not set firmly.
“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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