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Dessert

Coconut Fondant Candy

A sweet candy made from sugar syrup, cream of tartar, and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Coconut Fondant Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in water in a saucepan.

  2. Add the cream of tartar and boil until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  3. Ensure the syrup does not form crystals on the side of the pan.

Finish the candy

  1. Mix the grated coconut with the fondant until it holds well.

  2. Spread the mixture on buttered plates and cut into 1‑inch squares.

  3. Leave to harden.

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

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

  2. Cream + coconuttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,223 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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, which cooks into a syrup that sets into soft fondant.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing into a grainy texture.
Grated coconut
Adds flavor and bulk, giving the fondant its chewy, textured body.

The step that matters

Keep the syrup free of crystals on the pan side. Stray sugar crystals on the pan wall can seed crystallization throughout the syrup, making the fondant grainy instead of smooth. Wiping the sides and avoiding stirring once boiling helps prevent this.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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