Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Maple Fudge
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the maple sugar and cream in a saucepan over medium heat for 15 to 30 minutes.
Stir continuously until the mixture reaches the 'crack' stage.
Remove from heat and beat the mixture hard for about 5 minutes.
Pour into buttered pans and mark into squares.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Maple sugar
- Provides the sweetness and the base that crystallizes into fudge's texture as it cooks.
- Cream
- Adds fat and moisture, making the fudge smoother and creamier than sugar alone.
The step that matters
Beating the mixture after removing it from heat. Beating while the mixture cools forces fine sugar crystals to form, which gives fudge its smooth, creamy texture. Beating too early or too late can leave it grainy or hard to set.
“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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