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Peanut Candy

A brittle candy made by boiling sugar and water, adding cream of tartar, butter, and peanuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Peanut Candy

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 ↓

Peanut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until the mixture reaches a brittle stage when tested in cold water.

  3. Dissolve the cream of tartar in cool water.

  4. Add it to the boiling mixture.

  5. Cook for an additional four minutes.

  6. Stir in the butter.

Pour and set

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the peanuts in a buttered dish.

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. 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. Butter + peanuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + peanuttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the candy's sweet, firm structure as the syrup cooks and hardens.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing, so the candy stays smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother texture to the candy.
Peanuts
Provide the crunchy texture and nutty flavor that the hot syrup coats.

The step that matters

Boil to the brittle stage. As water boils off, the syrup gets harder. Stopping too early leaves a sticky candy that will not set firm, while going too far makes it burnt and bitter. Testing a drop in cold water shows when it is ready.

Swap the peanut

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

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

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