Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Fondant
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a saucepan, combine sugar and water.
Stir until the sugar dissolves.
Add a little butter and cook until the mixture forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Work the fondant
Stir vigorously until the mixture thickens.
Knead the fondant on a marble slab.
If it feels too hard, work in a little warm water.
Flavor and color the fondant to your liking.
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 + 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
- Sugar
- Forms the structure of the fondant as it cooks into a syrup and then recrystallizes into a smooth mass.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be cooked into a syrup without burning.
- Butter
- Adds fat that softens the texture and helps keep the fondant smooth.
The step that matters
Stirring after cooling. Stirring vigorously once the syrup has cooled encourages tiny sugar crystals to form, which makes the fondant thick and smooth. Stirring too early, while hot, can make it grainy.
“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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