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Cream Candy

A hard candy made from sugar, butter, vinegar, water, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream Candy

Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Cream Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine butter, sugar, cream of tartar, vinegar, and water.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  3. Continue cooking without straining until nearly done.

  4. Test the candy by dropping a small amount into cold water; it should form a soft ball.

  5. Once ready, remove from heat and flavor with lemon extract.

Finish

  1. Pull the candy until it becomes very white.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Sugar
Forms the sweet base that cooks into the candy's body and sets as it cools.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent crystallization for a smoother texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar syrup from crystallizing.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the candy's texture and richness.

The step that matters

Test the soft ball stage. Testing by dropping a small amount into cold water shows when the syrup has reached the right concentration. Cooking too short leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and brittle once cooled.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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