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Dessert

Peanut Candy

A brittle candy made from sugar, water, cream of tartar, butter, and coated with shelled nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Peanut Candy

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Peanut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until the mixture reaches a brittle stage when dropped in cold water.

  3. Dissolve cream of tartar in a little cold water, then add the dissolved cream of tartar to the boiling mixture.

  4. Add the butter and cook for a few more minutes.

Coat and cool

  1. Pour the candy over the shelled nuts spread in a buttered tin.

  2. Set aside to cool.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Walnut + nutstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet base that hardens into brittle candy as the syrup cooks.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallising, keeping the candy smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer bite and a richer flavour in the finished candy.

The step that matters

Boil until the brittle stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set firm when cooled. Stopping too early leaves it sticky, while cooking too long can make it bitter or burnt.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter, walnut. 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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