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Dessert

Best Fudge

A chocolate fudge made by boiling sugar, cream, water, cocoa, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Best Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine sugar, cream, and cold water in a hot water pan of a chafing dish.

  2. Stir until sugar melts.

  3. When the mixture begins to bubble, stir in cocoa or chocolate.

  4. Let it boil for exactly 6 minutes with the flame at half strength.

  5. After 6 minutes, add butter.

  6. Stir well, ensuring the candy doesn't stick to the pan.

  7. After the butter has boiled for 3 minutes, extinguish the flame.

  8. Add vanilla.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the candy until it thickens rapidly, about 1 minute.

  2. Pour into a buttered tin.

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. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it dissolves and cooks, forms the crystalline structure of the fudge.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the fudge a softer, creamier texture.
Cocoa or chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and colour of the fudge.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a tender, glossy texture.

The step that matters

Beat the candy until it thickens rapidly. Beating while the cooked sugar mixture cools controls crystal formation. Too little beating leaves the fudge soft and runny, while beating too long or after it has set can make it grainy and hard to pour.

Swap the cocoa

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter, vanilla. 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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