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Dessert

Pecan Candy

A sweet confection of pecan nuts in a caramelized sugar base.

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 ↓

Pecan Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Melt 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan.

  2. In another vessel, combine 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of sweet milk, and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the melted sugar into the boiling mixture slowly while stirring continuously to prevent boiling over.

  4. Cook until the mixture forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.

Finish and set

  1. Stir in 2 cups of pecan nuts.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan or dish.

  3. Allow to cool and cut into squares.

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Nuts + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when cooked, forms the candy's firm structure as it sets.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, giving the candy a softer, creamier texture.
Pecan nuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour to the set candy.

The step that matters

Cook until a soft ball forms in cold water. Sugar syrup firmness depends on how far its water has evaporated and how hot it gets. Stopping at the soft-ball stage gives a candy that is set but still tender; undercooking leaves it runny, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the nuts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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