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Maple Butter Scotch

A candy made from maple syrup, sugar, butter, and hickory nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Maple syrup and nuts work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 67 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Maple Butter Scotch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine maple syrup, granulated sugar, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture until it snaps in water.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in hickory nuts.

  4. Pour the mixture into buttered tins and let it cool.

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. Maple syrup + nutstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Maple syrup + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,252 recipes

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

  3. Maple syrup + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Maple syrup
Provides sweetness and a distinct maple aroma while thickening into a brittle sugar mass as it boils.
Granulated sugar
Forms the crystalline structure and sweetness that sets the candy firm when cooled.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and a tender bite in the finished scotch.
Hickory nuts
Add crunchy texture and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the sweet candy base.

The step that matters

Boil until it snaps in water. Sugar syrup sets hard only once it reaches the right concentration. Undercooked mixture stays sticky and soft, while overcooked mixture turns bitter and brittle, so the cold-water test helps judge the stage.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against maple syrup, sugar, butter. 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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