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Dessert

Nut Butter Scotch

A sweet confection made with sugar, molasses, nuts, and egg whites, baked into a loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Nut Butter Scotch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy base

  1. In a saucepan, combine white sugar, butter, molasses, and water.

  2. Boil until it snaps when dropped in cold water.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin lined with nuts.

Make the second syrup

  1. In another pan, dissolve 2 cups of sugar in enough water.

  2. Add 1 cup of rock candy syrup and cook well.

Combine and shape

  1. Beat the whites of 3 eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Stir the first pan's mixture into the beaten egg whites and mix well.

  3. Add the second pan's mixture to the egg mixture and beat well.

  4. Fold in the nuts and vanilla flavoring.

  5. Pour the mixture into a dish or pan.

  6. Shape it into a loaf.

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.

  1. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Molasses + syruptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

White sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled, forms the firm body of the candy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender bite.
Molasses
Adds deep flavour, colour, sweetness and moisture.
Whites of 3 eggs
Whipped whites trap air, giving the candy a lighter, airy structure.
Nuts
Add crunch and texture contrasting with the soft candy.

The step that matters

Boil until it snaps in cold water. Sugar concentration sets the final firmness. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it brittle or scorched.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, syrup, egg, 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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