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Peanut Candy

A sweet confection made by melting sugar with peanuts and vanilla, then setting in a buttered dish.

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

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peanut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat 2 cups of white sugar in a dry iron frying pan, stirring until it melts.

  2. Add 2 bags of shelled peanuts and 1 tablespoon of vanilla.

  3. Quickly pour the mixture into a buttered dish to set.

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.

  1. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Peanut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Peanut + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

White sugar
Melts and caramelizes to form the sweet, brittle base that hardens as it cools.
Shelled peanuts
Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrast with the hard sugar.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Pour quickly into the buttered dish. Melted sugar hardens fast as it cools. Pouring promptly lets the mixture spread into an even layer before it sets in the pan.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, butter. 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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