Skip to main content
Dessert

English Walnut Candy

A sweet candy made from confectionery sugar, egg white, and English walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

English Walnut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine confectionery sugar, egg white, and water in a bowl.

  2. Add water until the mixture is thick enough to handle.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a breadboard and knead for 15 minutes.

Shape and finish

  1. Roll out the mixture smoothly and cut into squares.

  2. Place a walnut half between each square.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 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

Confectionery sugar
Forms the bulk of the candy and provides its sweetness and firm, sliceable structure.
Egg white
Binds the sugar into a cohesive dough and adds structure to the candy.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the sweet, dense candy.

The step that matters

Adding water to the right consistency. Sugar absorbs liquid unevenly, so too little water leaves the dough crumbly and too much makes it sticky and hard to shape. Add water gradually until the dough holds together and is easy to handle.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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.

More walnut candy recipes

Black 6Brown Sugar 3Maple 3Molasses 3 See all 23 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes