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Peanut Candy

A brittle candy made with sugar, water, cream of tartar, butter, and shelled peanuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Peanut Candy

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 ↓

Peanut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Dissolve cream of tartar in a little water and add to the boiling mixture.

  3. Cook until the mixture becomes brittle when dropped into cold water.

Assemble and set

  1. Butter a plate and spread the shelled peanuts on it.

  2. Pour the hot candy mixture over the peanuts.

  3. Allow to cool, then cut into squares.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  3. Butter + peanuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + peanuttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the candy base and provides sweetness and the hard, brittle texture when cooked.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar crystallising and keeping the candy smooth.
Shelled peanuts
Provide crunch and nutty flavour set within the brittle candy.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture becomes brittle when dropped into cold water. Sugar syrup must reach the hard-crack stage to set firm and brittle on cooling. Stopping early leaves a sticky, chewy candy, while cooking too long can scorch it and taste bitter.

Swap the peanut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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