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Dessert

Nut Candy

A sweet confection made from sugar, milk, butter, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Nut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine light brown sugar, granulated sugar, sweet milk, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

  3. Add the nut meats and beat until thick.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  2. Once cooled, cut into squares.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 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

Light brown sugar
Adds moisture and a molasses-like depth of flavour to the candy.
Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and helps the candy set firm as it cools.
Sweet milk
Dissolves the sugars and adds creaminess to the candy's texture.
Nut meats
Add crunch and nutty flavour that contrast with the soft candy.

The step that matters

Beating until thick. Beating the hot mixture encourages sugar to crystallise into a fine, smooth texture. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and grainy, while overbeating can make it set too stiff to cut cleanly.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, meat. 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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Hickory 13Maple 8Sugar 8Cocoa 7 See all 37 →

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