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Dessert

Sour Cream Candy

A candy made by boiling sour cream, brown sugar, butter, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Sour Cream Candy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine sour cream and brown sugar.

  2. Add a piece of butter and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil for 8 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and stir for a long time.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + walnuttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Adds tang and creaminess, balancing the sweetness of the candy.
Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness and the caramel flavor and body as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Stirring after removing from heat. Stirring as the mixture cools encourages fine sugar crystals, which give a smooth, creamy texture instead of a grainy one. Stir steadily until the candy thickens and loses its glossy look.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Filbertfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, 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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