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Dessert

Barley Sugar

A candied sugar made from barley, water, cream of tartar, and lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Barley Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil and clarify the sugar with water.

  2. Mix the cream of tartar in 1 tablespoon of water and add to the pan.

  3. Boil until it reaches the crack stage.

  4. Mix in the essence of lemon.

Shape and store

  1. Turn out onto a well-oiled surface and let cool until manageable.

  2. Cut into 6-inch long, 1-inch wide strips.

  3. Twist each end in opposite directions and stand upright in airtight tins.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the glassy candy base once boiled to the crack stage.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps prevent the sugar from recrystallising, keeping the candy smooth.

The step that matters

Boil until it reaches the crack stage. Sugar syrup must reach the correct temperature to set hard when cooled. Too little cooking leaves a sticky candy that won't hold its shape, while overcooking can scorch it and give a bitter taste.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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