Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Excelsior Cream Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until dissolved.
Allow the mixture to cook without stirring until it forms little bubbles and a drop in cold water snaps.
Shape and pull
Once ready, pour the candy onto buttered plates or tins without scraping the saucepan.
Set the candy over a pail of cold water or in a cool place for about 5 minutes until it can be handled.
When the edges cool, fold them into the center and pick up the candy with your hands.
Keep your fingers smooth with fresh lard or butter and pull the candy quickly with your fingers.
When it turns white and becomes brittle, stretch it on a mixing board and cut into lengths.
If desired, add vanilla essence while the candy is cooling.
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 + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the candy's sugar base, which sets firm and brittle as it cools and is pulled.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar so the syrup can cook evenly before it reaches the candy stage.
The step that matters
Stop cooking at the right point and do not scrape the saucepan. Cooking until a drop snaps in cold water sets the sugar's firmness. Scraping the pan can pull in sugar crystals that trigger graining, making the candy grainy instead of smooth.
“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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