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Dessert

Cream Candy

A hard candy made from sugar, water, vanilla, and cream of tartar, cooled and stretched to a white, brittle texture.

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

Cook the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a bright tin pan. Heat until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Boil the mixture without stirring until it crisps in water, similar to molasses candy.

  3. Just before it is done, add vanilla extract and cream of tartar.

Pull and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan and let it cool until manageable.

  2. Work the candy until it turns perfectly white, then stretch it out on a marble slab or a buttered molding board.

  3. Cut into bite-sized pieces with a chopping knife and set aside to cream as it dries.

  4. If the candy grains before pulling, return it to the pan, add water, and boil again.

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. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 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

Sugar
Forms the candy's body, and cooking it to the right stage sets its texture.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar crystals small, for a smoother candy.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma and flavor to the finished candy.

The step that matters

Boiling without stirring. Stirring the hot syrup can trigger sugar crystals to form early, so the candy turns grainy instead of smooth. Letting it boil undisturbed until it crisps in water keeps the sugar dissolved and the texture fine.

“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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