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Maple Syrup Candy

A candy made from maple syrup, cream of tartar, vanilla, and hickorynut meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Maple syrup and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 752 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Maple Syrup Candy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the maple syrup and cream of tartar until a drop in cold water forms a ball in your fingers.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. When lukewarm, stir until creamy, then add the vanilla and hickorynut meats.

  4. Pour immediately into a buttered tin pan, aiming for at least ½ inch thickness.

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. Maple syrup + vanillatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together752 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Maple syrup + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together607 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cream + meattop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,248 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Maple syrup + meattop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cream and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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

Maple syrup
Provides the main sugar base and the characteristic maple flavour of the candy.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps keep the sugar smooth and fine-grained rather than gritty.
Hickorynut meats
Adds crunchy texture and nutty flavour to the creamy candy.

The step that matters

Stir only once the syrup is lukewarm. Stirring while the boiled syrup is still hot can trigger large sugar crystals and a grainy result. Waiting for it to cool lets the sugar crystallise into a fine, creamy texture.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Pumpkinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against maple syrup, cream, meat. 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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