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Dessert

Vinegar Candy

A sweet candy made by boiling sugar with vinegar, butter, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Vinegar Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the candy

  1. Combine sugar, vinegar, butter, and lemon extract in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it boil for 15 minutes.

Pour and pull

  1. Pour the candy onto two greased plates.

  2. When it is partly cool, pull the candy until it turns white.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides the sweetness and forms the firm, glassy structure of the candy as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps keep the candy smooth and tender by limiting sugar crystallization.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives the candy a richer mouthfeel.
Lemon extract
Adds a bright citrus aroma to the candy.

The step that matters

Pulling the candy until it turns white. Pulling while the candy is partly cool incorporates air, which makes it opaque, white, and lighter in texture. Pulling while it is still too hot is difficult and can burn your hands, while waiting too long lets it set too firm to stretch.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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