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Dessert

Maple Nut Creams

A sweet confection made from coffee sugar, maple sugar, cream of tartar, butter, and water, formed into balls and coated with nut halves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Maple Nut Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fondant

  1. Boil the coffee sugar, grated maple sugar, cream of tartar, and enough water until it forms a firm ball when dropped in cold water.

  2. Stir in the butter and remove from heat.

  3. Set the mixture in a pan of cold water until it cools enough to dip your finger without burning.

  4. Beat the mixture with a spoon until creamy and smooth.

Shape and set

  1. Roll into small balls and press halves of nut meats on each side.

  2. Lay on oiled paper in a cool, dry place for 24 hours.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Coffee sugar
Provides the sweet, dissolved sugar base that sets into the creamy candy.
Grated maple sugar
Adds maple flavor and sweetness to the candy.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps prevent large sugar crystals, keeping the creams smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture and smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until creamy and smooth. Beating after cooling encourages many tiny sugar crystals to form, giving a smooth rather than grainy texture. Beating while the mixture is too hot or too cool can make it grainy or hard to work.

“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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