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Raspberry Candy

A candied raspberry confection made by cooking raspberries with sugar, lemon juice, and cream of tartar to hard ball stage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Raspberry Candy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 250°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine raspberries, sugar, lemon juice, and cream of tartar.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Increase heat and boil until the mixture reaches the hard ball stage (around 250°F or 121°C).

Set and shape

  1. Remove from heat and pour onto a greased marble slab or baking sheet.

  2. Let cool slightly, then cut into pieces or shape as desired.

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

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Provides the sweet bulk and, when boiled, sets into a firm, chewy candy.
Raspberries
Supply the fruit flavour and moisture that the sugar syrup cooks down.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the sugar from crystallising.
Cream of tartar
An acid that helps prevent sugar crystals from forming, keeping the candy smooth.

The step that matters

Boiling to the hard ball stage. Sugar candy sets according to its final concentration. Stopping short leaves it soft and sticky, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle, so the syrup should reach about 250°F (121°C) before pouring.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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