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Dessert

Double Fudge

A two-layer chocolate fudge with sugar, cream, butter, nuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Double Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first layer

  1. Combine 2 cups sugar, 2 squares chocolate, 1 cup cream, and 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for 7 minutes.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan.

Make the second layer

  1. Mix 2 cups brown sugar, walnut-sized butter, 4 cups cream, 1 cup rolled nuts, and 1 teaspoon vanilla in another bowl.

  2. Boil the second mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Beat the second mixture.

  4. Pour the second mixture over the first layer in the pan.

Set and cut

  1. Cut the set fudge 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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Walnut + nutstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 recipes

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

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

Sugar
Dissolves into the boiling liquid to give the fudge its sweetness and body.
Chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and fat that give the fudge its rich character.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the fudge smooth and tender rather than dry.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like depth to the upper layer.
Rolled nuts
Add texture and crunch to the upper layer.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture well. Beating the boiled sugar mixture as it cools encourages fine sugar crystals to form, which gives fudge its smooth, creamy texture instead of a grainy one.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate, cream, butter, nuts, 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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