Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Fudge
Ingredients
Directions
Make the fudge
Combine sugar, milk, butter, chocolate, and corn starch in a saucepan.
Cook over medium heat until it forms a soft ball when dropped in cold water.
Beat the mixture until it begins to thicken.
Set
Pour into a buttered pan and let it cool.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,404 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,128 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and, as it cooks, the structure that sets the fudge.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness, dissolving the sugar into a smooth syrup.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and a rich flavour.
- Chocolate
- Gives the fudge its chocolate flavour and colour.
- Corn starch
- Stabilises the mixture so it stays smooth and resists graininess while cooling.
The step that matters
Cook to the soft-ball stage. Cooking sugar to the right temperature controls how much water remains. Too little cooking leaves fudge soft and runny, while too much makes it hard and crumbly.
“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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