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Dessert

Butter-scotch Candy

A caramel candy made with brown sugar, butter, vinegar, water, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Butter-scotch Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a large pot, combine brown sugar, butter, vinegar, and water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Once boiling, add the baking soda.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes, checking for crispness by dropping a small amount into cold water.

Set and cut

  1. If it hardens, remove from heat and pour into a buttered pan.

  2. Let it cool slightly, then 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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness and the caramel flavour as the sugar cooks down.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the candy a smooth, buttery texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot acidic mixture to create bubbles that lighten the candy's texture.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 minutes and test for crispness. Sugar candy sets according to how much water has boiled off and how hot the syrup gets. Testing a drop in cold water shows whether it has reached a hard, brittle stage. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too long can make it bitter or burnt.

“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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