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 ↓
French Cream Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine the sugar and water in a pot over medium heat and stir until it begins to boil.
Once boiling, add the cream of tartar and boil rapidly for 10 to 20 minutes.
To test, drop a little mixture into a cup of cold water; it should have a soft, waxy appearance when done.
Cool and stir
Remove from heat and let cool.
When nearly cool, stir with a flat piece of wood until it turns snowy white.
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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the sweet base that crystallizes into the candy's texture.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent unwanted large sugar crystals.
The step that matters
Stirring while nearly cool. Stirring encourages many fine sugar crystals to form at once, turning the syrup opaque and creamy white. Stirring too early or too late can yield a grainy or hard candy with a different texture.
“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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