Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓
Ice Cream Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar in the water over low heat.
Add the cream of tartar mixed with a little water.
Continue cooking until nearly done, then add a small piece of butter.
Work the mixture until it turns white.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 candy base and sets into a firm, brittle structure as it cooks.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the syrup to help prevent sugar crystals from forming a grainy texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and a richer flavor to the finished candy.
The step that matters
Work the mixture until it turns white. Stirring a cooked sugar syrup as it cools encourages fine crystals to form, which turns it opaque and creamy. Stopping too early or too late changes the final texture.
“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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