Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Clear Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Combine the sugar, boiling water, and cream of tartar in a saucepan.
Boil the mixture without stirring until it snaps when dropped in cold water.
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White sugar
- Forms the bulk of the candy and sets into a clear, hard glass as the syrup cools.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing, so the candy stays smooth and clear.
The step that matters
Boil without stirring. Stirring can trigger sugar crystals to form, which makes the candy cloudy and grainy. Boiling until the mixture snaps in cold water ensures it reaches the hard-crack stage needed to set firm.
“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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