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Dessert

Candy-making

A method for boiling sugar to make candy, optionally adding lemon juice, cream of tartar, or vinegar, and using butter or lard to prevent sticking.

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 ↓

Candy-making

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil sugar in a saucepan or a bright tin basin.

  2. Keep the top of the vessel partly covered to prevent crystal formation.

  3. Add 4–5 drops of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar, or vinegar to prevent graining.

  4. Rub fresh butter or lard on your hands to prevent sticking when pulling candy.

  5. If forming into sticks, lightly flour your hands, but do not use enough flour to affect the taste.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  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

Sugar
Forms the candy base that sets into a firm, sweet mass as it cooks.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep sugar crystals small, preventing a grainy texture.
Lemon juice
Mild acid that helps prevent sugar from crystallising into a grainy texture.

The step that matters

Keep the top of the vessel partly covered. Steam from boiling washes sugar crystals off the pan sides; if crystals form there they can fall into the syrup and trigger graining. Partial covering keeps the rim clean.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, vinegar, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, vinegar, butter. 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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