Why it works: Sugar and honey are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,932 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Honey Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar in enough water in a saucepan.
Add the honey and bring to a boil.
Continue boiling until the mixture becomes brittle when dropped into cold water.
Remove from heat and pull the candy as it cools.
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 + honeytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,932 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
- White sugar
- Forms the candy's crystal-free glassy structure as the syrup cooks and hardens.
- Honey
- Adds sweetness and flavor, and its sugars help keep the candy from crystallizing.
The step that matters
Boiling until brittle in cold water. Sugar syrup hardens at different points depending on how far it has cooked. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too long can make it bitter or burnt.
“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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