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Dessert

Texas Pecan Candy

A sweet candy made with sugar, milk, butter, vanilla, and pecans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Texas Pecan Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Combine 2 cups of granulated sugar, 1 cup of milk, and 1 teaspoon of butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. When the mixture is nearly done, remove it from the heat.

  3. Melt 1 cup of granulated sugar in a frying pan until dissolved; do not scrape the pan.

  4. Add the melted sugar to the other ingredients, stir well, and let it boil briskly for a moment.

Beat and shape

  1. Stir in 1 cup of pecan meats and beat the mixture until very thick.

  2. Spoon the mixture onto paraffin paper to form round cakes and let them cool.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the crystals that give the candy its body.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the sugar's texture as it cooks.
Pecan meats
Add nutty flavour and a crunchy texture to the set candy.

The step that matters

Beating until very thick. Beating a hot sugar mixture makes it cool and crystallise into small crystals, giving a creamy texture. Stop too early and the candy stays runny; go too long and it sets hard before it can be shaped.

“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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