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Sugar Candy

A hard candy made from sugar, water, cream of tartar, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Sugar Candy

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 ↓

Sugar Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.

  2. Add cream of tartar and bring to a boil.

  3. Cook until the mixture hardens in cold water.

Finish the candy

  1. Just before it's done, add the walnut-sized lump of butter.

  2. Pull the candy a little.

  3. Make holes in it.

  4. Add vanilla extract to the holes.

  5. Finish pulling the candy.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Walnut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Forms the body of the candy and provides its sweetness.
Cream of tartar
Acidity helps stop the sugar from crystallising, keeping the candy smooth.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a richer mouthfeel.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma to the finished candy.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture hardens in cold water. As water evaporates, the sugar concentrates and reaches a hard stage when dropped into cold water. Stopping early leaves the candy sticky, while cooking too long can make it brittle or bitter.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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