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Dessert

Divinity Fudge

A fudge made with corn syrup, sugar, water, salt, cream of tartar, egg whites, flavoring, nuts, and fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Divinity Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine Karo corn syrup, water, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches the fudge stage.

Finish the fudge

  1. Gradually beat in the egg whites until well combined.

  2. Add your choice of flavoring and stir in the nuts and fruit.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Corn + nutstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together104 recipes

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

  5. Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled, forms the crystalline body of the fudge.
Karo corn syrup
Interferes with sugar crystallization, keeping the fudge smooth and tender.
Egg whites
Whipped into the hot syrup to add airy structure and a light, fluffy texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent crystals from forming and stabilizing the foam.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reaches the fudge stage. Sugar concentration controls the final texture. Stopping too early leaves the fudge soft and sticky, while going too far makes it hard and grainy as sugar recrystallizes.

Swap the nuts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, syrup, sugar, cream, 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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