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Maple Fudge

Maple fudge is a sweet confection made with brown sugar, sweet cream, butter, vinegar, and pecans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Maple Fudge

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 ↓

Maple Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, sweet cream, butter, and vinegar.

  2. Boil the mixture until a drop in cold water is firm.

  3. Remove from heat and beat until it thickens.

  4. Stir in the chopped pecans.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + pecanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,416 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness and the maple-like flavor of the fudge.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the fudge a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps give the fudge a smooth, tender texture.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing too coarsely.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor against the soft fudge.

The step that matters

Beat after removing from heat. Beating the cooked sugar mixture as it cools encourages fine sugar crystals to form, which gives fudge its smooth texture. Beating too early or too late can leave it grainy or too stiff to shape.

Swap the pecans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, butter, vinegar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter, vinegar. 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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