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Dessert

Maple Nougat

A sweet confection made from maple sugar, butter, cream, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Maple Nougat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Melt the maple sugar in a pan on the stove until it becomes thin like syrup.

  2. Add the lukewarm cream to the melted sugar, then stir in the butter.

Cool and finish

  1. Let the mixture cool until it thickens in a double boiler.

  2. Stir in the chopped nuts.

  3. Serve hot over vanilla ice cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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 main sweetness and maple flavor, and sets the candy's body as it thickens.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the cooled candy.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel and a buttery finish.
Walnuts or pecans
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty contrast to the soft, creamy mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until it thickens. Sugar syrup that cools slowly and undisturbed forms fine crystals, giving a smooth texture. Cooling too far or too fast can cause graininess or a hard, brittle set.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, cream. 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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