Why it works: Butter and nuts are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Plain Nut Taffy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the taffy
In a saucepan, combine the butter and salt.
Add enough water to mix well and bring to a boil.
Boil until the mixture reaches a brittle stage.
Add the nuts and cool
Stir in the nuts and pour the mixture onto buttered plates to cool.
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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Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,291 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor to the candy.
- Nuts
- Add crunch and a nutty flavor to the brittle candy.
The step that matters
Boiling to the brittle stage. As the boiling mixture loses water, it becomes more concentrated and hardens. Stopping too early leaves it soft and sticky, while boiling too long can scorch it and taste bitter.
“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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