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 ↓
Pop-corn Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the corn
Pop the corn and remove all the unpopped kernels.
Make the syrup
In a large pan, combine sugar, cream of tartar, and a little water.
Boil the mixture until it hardens when dropped in water.
Shape the balls
Pour the syrup over the popped corn and mix well.
Shape the mixture into balls.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the hard, sticky syrup that binds the popped corn together.
- Popped corn
- Provides the bulk and light, crisp texture of the finished balls.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar crystals from forming and keeping it smooth.
The step that matters
Boiling the syrup to the hard-crack stage. Boiling until the syrup hardens when dropped in water sets the sugar's firmness. Too little cooking leaves the balls sticky and loose; too much makes them brittle or scorched. Cream of tartar helps keep the syrup from crystallising.
“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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