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Maple Cream Bars

Maple Cream Bars are sweet bars made from maple syrup, heavy cream, and walnuts, set in a buttered pan.

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

Maple Cream Bars

Ingredients

Directions

Make the maple cream

  1. In a granite saucepan, combine the maple syrup and heavy cream.

  2. Boil briskly while stirring constantly until it reaches the soft ball stage.

  3. Remove from heat and beat until it begins to thicken.

  4. If desired, add the English walnut meats.

Shape and cut

  1. When thick enough, pour into a buttered pan and press into shape.

  2. Once cool, cut into bars approximately 1 inch thick, 1½ inches wide, and 5 inches long.

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

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

  2. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Maple syrup + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Maple syrup
Provides the main sweetness and flavor, and its sugars set into a firm, creamy candy when boiled and cooled.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the bars a smooth, soft texture rather than a brittle one.
English walnut meats
Adds crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the smooth maple cream.

The step that matters

Boil to the soft ball stage. Stirring constantly over brisk heat keeps the mixture from scorching and scorching-prone sugars from crystallizing. Reaching the soft ball stage sets the sugar concentration that determines whether the bars firm up properly when cooled.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (maple syrup, cream, meat, butter):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Nutsfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against maple syrup, cream, meat, 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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