Why it works: Butter and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,832 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Maple Creams
Ingredients
Directions
Make the maple candy
Combine maple sugar and water in a saucepan and cook without stirring.
When nearly done, add a small piece of butter.
Test the mixture in cold water; when it begins to harden, remove from heat.
Stir rapidly until it becomes a waxy substance.
Shape and finish
Roll into balls and place halves of English walnuts on either side.
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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Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,832 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,147 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 main body of the candy once it is cooked and stirred.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, softening the texture of the finished creams.
- English walnuts
- Add crunch and a contrasting nutty flavour to the soft candy.
The step that matters
Stir rapidly until waxy. Stirring a cooked sugar syrup encourages fine crystals to form, which makes the candy opaque and creamy. Stirring too early or too slowly can leave it grainy or hard, so the mixture must be stirred as it cools to the right point.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter):
- Almondfits better
- Pecansfits better
- Filbertfits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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