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Dessert

Peanut Candy

A sweet candy made from sugar, molasses, milk, butter, and peanuts, boiled and pulled until white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Peanut Candy

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 ↓

Peanut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a pot, combine sugar, molasses, and milk.

  2. Boil the mixture until it forms a hair-like thread when tested.

  3. Stir in a small piece of butter just before removing from heat.

  4. Add the peanuts and mix well.

Pull and shape

  1. Allow to cool, then pull the mixture until it turns white.

  2. Shape into a bar and cut into thin slices with a sharp knife.

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

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

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + peanuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + peanuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled, forms the hard structure of the candy.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor and color, and softens the texture of the candy.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the candy mixture.
Peanuts
Provide the main body, flavor, and crunch of the candy.

The step that matters

Boil to the hair-like thread stage. Boiling drives off water and concentrates sugar; stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while boiling too long makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, 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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