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Dessert

Divinity Fudge

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the syrups

  1. Combine 3 cups of sugar, 1 cup of Karo corn syrup, and 1 cup of water in a saucepan. Boil until it reaches the thread stage.

  2. Combine 1 cup of sugar and ½ cup of water in a separate saucepan. Bring to a boil.

Make the candy

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Pour the second mixture onto the beaten egg whites, mixing well.

  3. Add the first mixture when it is nearly ready to pour and thick like fudge.

  4. Stir in 1 cup of chopped nuts and 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

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. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

Sugar
Forms the sweet, firm candy base as the syrup cooks and sets.
Karo corn syrup
Helps keep the sugar from crystallizing, so the candy stays smooth.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff foam that gives the candy its light, airy structure.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and texture against the soft candy.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the hot syrup at the right moment. Sugar syrup sets as it cools and thickens as it cooks. Pouring it in when it is nearly ready to pour and thick like fudge keeps the candy soft and smooth. Adding it too early gives a thin, sticky result, while adding it too late can make the candy hard and grainy.

Swap the nuts

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

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

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