Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Maple Sugar Caramels
Ingredients
Directions
Combine powdered maple sugar and cream or rich milk in a saucepan.
Place the saucepan at the back of the oven to simmer slowly without stirring.
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.
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Powdered maple sugar
- Provides the sweetness and maple flavour, and dissolves into the cream to form the caramel base.
- Cream or rich milk
- Adds fat and moisture, giving the caramel a soft, smooth texture as it thickens.
The step that matters
Simmering without stirring. Stirring while the mixture cooks can encourage sugar crystals to form, which makes caramel grainy. Leaving it undisturbed lets the sugar dissolve and the liquid reduce evenly.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.