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Dessert

French Nut Candy

A candied nut confection made with sugar syrup, egg whites, and finely chopped nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

French Nut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water.

  2. Boil until it reaches the string stage.

Make the candy

  1. Pour the boiling syrup over the beaten egg whites and beat for five minutes.

  2. Add the finely chopped nuts and beat for an additional five minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture onto a buttered plate and let it cool.

Finish

  1. Once cool, cut into strips.

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

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

  2. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + nutstop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,624 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Forms the syrup that sets into the candy's sweet, firm body.
Egg whites
Beaten into the hot syrup to create a light, airy, aerated texture.
Nuts
Add crunch and nutty flavor throughout the set candy.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup to the string stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set firm once cooled. Underheating leaves the candy soft and sticky, while overheating makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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