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Maple Fudge

Maple fudge is a sweet confection made from brown sugar, milk or cream, butter, vanilla, and optional nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Maple Fudge

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Maple Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, milk or cream, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture until it forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool until nearly cold.

  4. Stir in nuts and vanilla extract until the mixture hardens.

  5. Pour into a buttered dish 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.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 the sweetness and the caramel flavour of the fudge.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the fudge a smoother, softer texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until nearly cold before stirring. Sugar must be boiled to the soft-ball stage and then cooled before beating or stirring. If stirred while hot, large sugar crystals can form, making the fudge grainy instead of smooth. Cooling lets the mixture thicken and set into a creamy texture.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, vanilla):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, vanilla. 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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