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 ↓
Plain Fondant
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a pot.
Boil without stirring until a soft ball forms in cold water.
If sugar sticks to the kettle, wash it down with a wet hand.
Form the fondant
Let the fondant cool until you can hold your finger in it.
Stir until it becomes white and creamy, then knead into a firm ball.
Place in a covered dish and let it stand for a few days before using.
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.
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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
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the sweet base whose crystals set into the smooth, soft texture of fondant.
- Cold water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can be cooked into a syrup without grainy crystals forming early.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the fondant smooth.
The step that matters
Boil without stirring until a soft ball forms in cold water. Stirring the boiling syrup can trigger premature crystallization, leaving grainy fondant. Sugar concentration is judged by the soft-ball test, since cooking further makes the candy firmer and harder to work.
“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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