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Dessert

Divinity Creams

A confection made with sugar, water, Karo syrup, egg whites, vanilla, and nuts, formed into spoonfuls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Divinity Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrups

  1. In a saucepan, combine water, Karo syrup, and white sugar. Boil until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  2. In another saucepan, combine sugar and water. Boil until it spins a thread.

Whip and shape

  1. Pour the second mixture over the well-beaten egg whites.

  2. Combine the first and second mixtures and beat well.

  3. Add nuts and vanilla extract, then drop spoonfuls onto buttered paper.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Syrup + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that traps air and gives the candy its light, airy structure.
White sugar
Forms the sweet base, and its concentration sets how firm the cooled candy becomes.
Karo syrup
Interferes with sugar crystals so the candy stays smooth and tender rather than grainy.
Nuts
Add crunchy texture and a contrast to the soft, smooth candy.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma and a rounded flavor to the sweet candy.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to the soft ball stage. Sugar syrup firms as its concentration rises with temperature. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while going too far makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, vanilla, egg. 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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