Why it works: Nuts and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,228 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Hickoky-nut Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the syrup
In a saucepan, combine sugar and water and boil without stirring until the mixture thickens enough to spin a thread.
Remove from heat and let it cool.
Set and cut
Stir the mixture until it turns white, then add the nuts.
Pour the mixture into a flat tin and let it cool completely.
Once cooled, cut into squares.
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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Nuts + sugartop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,228 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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, as the syrup cools, the firm body that holds the candy together.
- Nuts
- Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour that contrasts with the firm sugar.
The step that matters
Boiling to the thread stage without stirring. Sugar syrup sets according to how much water is boiled off. Stopping too early leaves a soft, sticky candy, while going too far makes it hard and brittle. Stirring can trigger premature crystallisation, so the syrup is left undisturbed.
“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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