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Dessert

Swiss Milk Toffee

A sweet confection made from sugar, treacle, butter, and Swiss milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Swiss Milk Toffee

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar, treacle, and Swiss milk to the melted butter.

  3. Boil the mixture quickly for 20 minutes, stirring constantly.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Provides sweetness and, as it dissolves and cooks, helps set the toffee firm.
Treacle
Adds deep flavour and moisture, and helps the toffee stay chewy rather than brittle.
Butter
Adds fat for smooth richness and helps keep the toffee from sticking to the pan.
Swiss milk
Supplies milk solids and sweetened body, giving the toffee its creamy, caramel-like texture.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture quickly for 20 minutes, stirring constantly. Constant stirring stops the sugar and milk solids from scorching on the base of the pan. Boiling hard drives off water so the mixture thickens and sets as it cools.

“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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