Name: Fondants
Ingredients: 2 cups granulated sugar; ½ teaspoon cream of tartar; ¾ cup water

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 ↓

Fondants

Ingredients

2 cups granulated sugar
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
¾ cup water

Directions

Make the syrup

In a saucepan, combine sugar, cream of tartar, and water.
Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
Bring to a boil without stirring until it reaches 240°F (115°C).

Cool and work the fondant

Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.
Stir until it thickens and becomes creamy.
Color and flavor as desired, then use for candies.

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.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Granulated sugar: Forms the syrup and, once cooled and stirred, the fine crystals that make fondant smooth.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent large sugar crystals from forming.
Water: Dissolves the sugar so it can be heated into a syrup.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil without stirring until it reaches 240°F (115°C). Stirring after the sugar dissolves can trigger premature crystallization, producing grainy fondant. Cooking to the set temperature controls how much water remains, which determines firmness.

“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.