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Dessert

Nut Candy

Nut Candy is a sweet confection made by boiling sugar and water, adding vinegar, and coating nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and brazil nut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Nut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar and water in a pot.

  2. Add a dash of vinegar after boiling.

  3. Remove the scum as it rises.

  4. Test the syrup by lifting it with a spoon; if it forms snapping threads, it's ready.

Assemble and set

  1. Grease the pans with butter before adding the nuts and candy.

  2. Pour the syrup over the chopped nuts.

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. Coconut + brazil nuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together25 recipes

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

  2. Coconut + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Brazil nut + buttertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the syrup base and, once cooked to temperature, the brittle candy structure.
Chopped coconut or nuts
Provides the crunchy texture and nutty flavor throughout the candy.
Brazil nuts
Adds crunch and rich nutty flavor to the candy.

The step that matters

Testing the syrup. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set firm and brittle. Lifting it with a spoon to check for snapping threads shows when it is ready; undercooked syrup stays sticky and overcooked syrup turns bitter or burnt.

Swap the brazil nut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Brazil nutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, coconut, 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.

More nut candy recipes

Hickory 13Maple 8Sugar 8Cocoa 7 See all 37 →

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