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 ↓
Cream Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the syrup
Cover the sugar with water and add a pinch of cream of tartar.
Boil until it forms a soft ball when dropped into cold water.
Flavor, pour and work the candy
Flavor the mixture and pour it onto a greased marble slab or thick brown paper.
Stir constantly until it becomes creamy.
Let it stand for some time, covering it with a damp cloth.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the body and sweetness of the candy, setting firm as the cooked syrup cools.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that helps keep sugar crystals small, so the candy stays smooth.
The step that matters
Stirring until creamy. Stirring the cooling syrup encourages many tiny sugar crystals to form, giving a smooth, creamy texture. If it is left unstirred, larger crystals form and the candy turns grainy.
“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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