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Maple Cream

A sweet dessert made from brown sugar, maple syrup, milk or cream, and nuts.

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

Why it works: Maple syrup and nuts work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 67 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Maple Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Combine brown sugar, maple syrup, and milk or cream in a saucepan.

  2. Boil, stirring occasionally, until it forms a stiff ball in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and beat until smooth.

Finish and set

  1. Stir in the chopped nuts and pour into a buttered pan.

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. Maple syrup + nutstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Sugar + maple syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,252 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Maple syrup + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Brown sugar
Provides most of the sweetness and body, and its sugars set firm as the mixture cools.
Maple syrup
Adds maple flavour and sweetness, and helps keep the sugar smooth.
Milk or cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the candy a creamier, softer texture.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and contrast to the smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Boil until a stiff ball forms in cold water. Cooking the sugar to the right concentration sets the final texture. Stopping too early leaves it soft and runny, while cooking too long makes it hard and grainy. Beating after removing from heat encourages small sugar crystals, giving a smooth result.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, maple syrup, milk):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Nutsthe original
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, maple syrup, milk. 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.

More maple cream recipes

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