Name: Butter Scotch
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; ½ cup butter; ¼ cup cream

Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Butter Scotch

Ingredients

2 cups sugar
½ cup butter
¼ cup cream

Directions

Make the butterscotch

Combine sugar, butter, and cream in a saucepan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches the hard crack stage (snaps when tested in cold water).

Set and cut

Pour the mixture into buttered pans.
Cut into small squares before it cools completely.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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: Forms the bulk of the candy and, as it cooks, the sweet caramel flavor and brittle structure.
Butter: Adds fat for a rich flavor and smooth texture in the cooked candy.
Cream: Adds dairy fat and moisture that soften the candy and keep it from turning grainy.

The step that matters

Cooking to the hard crack stage. Sugar syrup must reach the hard crack stage, around 300°F (150°C), to set firm and brittle when cooled. Stopping early leaves a soft, sticky candy, while going too far scorches the sugar and gives a bitter taste. Stirring constantly helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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.