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Dessert

Cream Candy

Cream candy is a sweet confection made from sugar, water, cream, butter, vinegar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream Candy

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 ↓

Cream Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a kettle, combine the sugar, cold water, and sweet cream or rich milk.

  2. Heat the mixture and add the butter.

  3. Just before it boils, stir in the vinegar.

  4. Let it boil for a few minutes.

  5. Before removing from heat, add the vanilla.

Finish

  1. You can pull the candy if desired; it improves after being kept for a week.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Provides the sweetness and the bulk that sets into the candy's body as it cools.
Sweet cream or rich milk
Adds fat and milk solids that give the candy a creamy, soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth mouthfeel and flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar just before it boils. Acid added at this point helps break some sucrose into invert sugars, which keeps the candy smoother and less grainy as it cooks and cools.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

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.

More cream candy recipes

Coconut 29Ice 29French 18Maple 13Chocolate 8White 6 See all 117 →

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