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Dessert

Chocolate Cream Candy

A hard candy made from sugar, water, vinegar, butter, vanilla, and grated chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cream Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine sugar, water, vinegar, butter, vanilla, and grated chocolate in a pot.

  2. Heat on the stove without stirring.

  3. Test the mixture by dropping a small amount into a cup of cold water.

Set and cut

  1. Once done, pour onto buttered baking sheets.

  2. Cut into squares when cool enough to handle.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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 sweet, firm body of the candy as it cooks and sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the finished candy.
Baker's chocolate
Gives the candy its chocolate flavour and colour.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallising too early.

The step that matters

Heating without stirring. Stirring a sugar syrup as it heats can trigger crystallisation, leaving the candy grainy instead of smooth. Keeping it still lets the sugar dissolve and the syrup reach the target temperature evenly.

“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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