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Coffee Fudge

A sweet fudge flavored with coffee and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Coffee Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fudge

  1. Combine sugar, cream, butter, and coffee in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the mixture can form a string when tested with a fork.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in broken walnut meats.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered tins.

  2. Allow to cool, then 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.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Coffee + walnuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together289 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when cooked, forms the crystal structure that sets the fudge.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the fudge smoother and creamier.
Butter
Contributes fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Coffee
Adds liquid and a coffee flavor that carries through the fudge.
Broken walnut meats
Add crunch and a nutty flavor against the soft fudge.

The step that matters

Cooking to the string stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration before cooling. Undercooked fudge stays soft and runny, while overcooked fudge turns hard and grainy as the sugar crystallizes unevenly.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, butter, coffee, meat):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoafits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter, coffee, meat. 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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