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White Sugar Candy to Pull

A hard candy made by boiling sugar, water, cream of tartar, and butter, then pulling until white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

White Sugar Candy to Pull

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, water, cream of tartar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for about 15 minutes without stirring.

  3. Test by dropping a little into cold water; it should harden.

Pull the candy

  1. Pour the mixture onto a buttered dish.

  2. Add flavoring when cool enough to handle.

  3. Pull the candy until it is quite white.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + pepperminttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together632 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + pepperminttop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together958 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Forms the sweet candy base that sets firm as the syrup cools.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps prevent sugar crystals from forming, keeping the candy smooth.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the candy's texture and gives it a richer finish.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring. Stirring while sugar syrup boils can trigger crystallisation, leaving the candy grainy instead of smooth. Cooking to the right point also controls how firm the candy sets.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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