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Dessert

Nut Candy

Nut Candy is a hard sugar candy made with brown sugar, vinegar, water, butter, and hickory kernels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Nut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, vinegar, and water.

  2. Add butter and cook over medium heat, stirring until the mixture reaches the hard ball stage (test in cold water).

Set the candy

  1. Once done, pour the mixture over a buttered plate lined with hickory kernels.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness and caramel flavor that defines the candy.
Vinegar
Adds a small amount of acidity that helps keep the sugar smooth rather than grainy.
Butter
Adds richness and a softer texture to the finished candy.

The step that matters

Cooking to the hard ball stage. Sugar syrup sets according to its final temperature, so stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and brittle. Stirring keeps the sugar from scorching or crystallizing unevenly.

“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.

More nut candy recipes

Hickory 13Maple 8Sugar 8Cocoa 7 See all 37 →

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