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Dessert

Divinity Fudge

A nutty fudge made with sugar, corn syrup, water, egg whites, and chopped nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Divinity Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, and water.

  2. Cook the mixture until it hardens when dropped in cold water.

Whip and combine

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until thick.

  2. Gradually add the cooked sugar mixture to the egg whites while beating.

  3. Fold in the chopped nuts.

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.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Corn + nutstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

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

  3. Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the candy and forms its crystalline structure as the syrup cooks.
Corn syrup
Interferes with sugar crystal formation, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, giving the candy a light, airy structure.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and texture contrast to the soft candy.

The step that matters

Cook the syrup until it hardens when dropped in cold water. The final temperature of the syrup determines how firm the candy sets. Undercooked syrup leaves the candy soft and sticky, while overcooked syrup makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, corn, syrup, egg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, syrup, egg. 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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