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Dessert

Fruit Candy

A sweet confection made with molasses, sugar, nuts, raisins, figs, currants, butter, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Fruit Candy

Why it works: Raisin and fig work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fruit Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy base

  1. Boil the molasses and sugar together until it becomes brittle when tested in cold water.

Prepare the fruit and nuts

  1. Wash and dry the currants thoroughly.

  2. Seed and chop the raisins, figs, and citron.

  3. Chop the nut meats, but not too fine.

Combine and set

  1. Mix all the ingredients with the candy mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture thickly into buttered pans.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Fig + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides dark color, deep flavor, and moisture to the candy base.
Sugar
Cooks with the molasses to form the firm, brittle candy structure.
Mixed nut meats
Add crunch and richness to the candy.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness.
Figs
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the candy release from the buttered pans.

The step that matters

Boil the molasses and sugar until brittle in cold water. Sugar candy sets firm only when cooked to the right concentration. Undercooked syrup stays sticky, while overcooked syrup turns bitter and hard. Testing in cold water shows when the syrup has reached the correct stage.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, meat, raisin, fig, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, meat, raisin, fig, 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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