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Home-made Horehound Candy

A candied confection made from horehound leaves, sugar, corn syrup, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Home-made Horehound Candy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the infusion

  1. Boil horehound leaves in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid into a saucepan.

Cook the candy

  1. Add sugar and corn syrup; stir until dissolved.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook until it reaches the hard crack stage (300°F or 150°C).

  3. Remove from heat and stir in butter.

  4. Pour onto a greased surface and let cool before breaking into pieces.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  3. Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Horehound leaves
Provide the characteristic bitter, herbal flavor that defines the candy.
Sugar
Forms the crystalline candy structure and provides sweetness as it cooks to hard crack.
Light corn syrup
Inhibits sugar crystallization, helping the candy stay smooth and glassy rather than grainy.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer bite and a richer, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking to the hard crack stage. Sugar syrup must reach about 300°F (150°C) to set hard when cooled. Stopping early leaves a sticky candy, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and give a bitter taste.

“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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