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 ↓
Fondant for Cream Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine sugar, hot water, and cream of tartar in a saucepan.
Stir until all sugar granules dissolve.
Bring to a boil without stirring.
Test syrup by dropping a teaspoon into a saucer; if it forms a creamy ball, remove from heat.
Cool and knead
Pour syrup onto a large flat platter and let cool until lukewarm.
Beat the mixture until thick and creamy, then knead until cold.
Flavor as desired and shape into forms.
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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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
- Sugar
- Forms the sweet, dense body of the paste as it crystallizes into fine grains.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the paste smooth.
The step that matters
Cooling the syrup before beating. Syrup must cool until lukewarm on a flat surface before beating. Beating too hot or too long before cooling lets large crystals form, making the paste grainy instead of smooth.
“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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