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Dessert

Nut Fudge

A chocolate nut fudge made by boiling sugar, cocoa, milk, butter, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Nut Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, combine the brown sugar and cocoa powder mixed with a little water.

  2. Fill the cup with milk and stir it into the sugar mixture.

  3. Place the pan on the stove and bring to a boil, watching carefully.

  4. Let it boil for 15 minutes, then add the butter and stir briefly.

  5. To test, drop a teaspoonful of the mixture into a cup of cold water; it should form a soft ball.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped nuts until the mixture thickens.

  7. Pour onto buttered pans and cut into small pieces once set.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + cocoa powdertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cocoa powder + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the fudge's body as it dissolves and cooks.
Cocoa powder
Adds chocolate flavour and colour to the fudge.
Milk
Adds moisture and dairy richness, helping the sugar form a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and mouthfeel.
Nuts
Add crunch and nutty flavour against the soft fudge.

The step that matters

Boiling and the soft-ball test. Sugar candy sets according to how much water has cooked off, so boiling too long makes fudge hard and too short leaves it soft. The cold-water soft-ball test checks the stage before removing it from heat.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cocoa powder, milk, butter):

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cocoa powder, milk, 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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