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Maple Candy

Maple candy made from butter, maple sugar, white sugar, water, salt, whipped cream, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Maple Candy

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 ↓

Maple Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the maple sugar, white sugar, water, and salt.

  3. Boil until a drop in cold water forms a soft ball.

  4. Set aside in a cool place for 10 minutes.

Finish and cut

  1. Stir in the whipped cream and chopped nuts quickly.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pan to cool.

  3. When partly cool, 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + creamtop 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Maple sugar
Provides the main maple flavour and sweetness.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the candy set firm when cooled.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and moisture, softening the texture of the candy.

The step that matters

Boil until a soft ball forms. Sugar syrup sets according to its final temperature, which concentrates as water boils off. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky; going too far makes it hard and grainy.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Filbertfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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