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Dessert

Stick Candy

A simple sugar candy made into sticks by pulling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stick Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, water, and cream of tartar.

  2. Boil over high heat without stirring or scraping the kettle.

  3. Test by dropping a spoonful into cold water; it is done when brittle.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Pull and shape

  1. Pull the candy as long as possible and form into sticks.

  2. Add flavoring while pulling.

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

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

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee sugar
Provides the sweetness and the bulk that hardens into the candy's glassy structure.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing, giving a smoother, less grainy candy.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring or scraping the kettle. Stirring or scraping can knock loose sugar crystals into the syrup, which can trigger grainy crystallization. Keeping the pan undisturbed helps the syrup stay smooth and clear as it reaches the hard-candy stage.

“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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