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 ↓
Butter Scotch
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, combine sugar, cream of tartar, water, and salt.
Cook over medium heat until the mixture cracks when dropped in cold water.
Add the butter and stir until melted.
Remove from heat and pour into a buttered pan.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White sugar
- Forms the sweet base and, as it caramelises, the characteristic amber colour and flavour.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps prevent the sugar from crystallising into a grainy texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rich flavour, and softens the set candy slightly when stirred in.
The step that matters
Cook until the mixture cracks in cold water. Sugar syrup changes texture as its water evaporates and its temperature rises. Stopping too early leaves a sticky, soft candy, while cooking too long over-darkens and hardens it, so the cold-water test is the cue to watch.
“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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