Why it works: Sugar and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,168 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Popcorn Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.
Boil until a soft ball forms when dropped into cold water.
Shape the balls
Pour the syrup over the popped corn while stirring continuously.
With your hands, form the corn into balls.
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 + corntop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Cooks into a syrup that hardens as it cools, binding the corn together and adding sweetness.
- Popped corn
- Provides the bulk of the snack, while the syrup coats it and holds it in shape.
The step that matters
Boil until a soft ball forms. The sugar's final concentration sets the texture. Stopping too early leaves the syrup runny and sticky, while cooking too long makes the coating hard and brittle.
“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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