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Dessert

Ginger Toffee

A caramelized sugar confection flavored with ground ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ginger Toffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the water over low heat.

  2. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally.

  3. When nearing boiling point, stir continuously.

  4. Once the syrup reaches the 'ball' stage, add the ginger.

  5. Return to heat and stir until it begins to thicken.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into a tin lined with well-buttered paper.

  2. When cold, cut into diamonds and 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. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Demerara sugar
Dissolves into a syrup that hardens as it cools, giving the toffee its body and sweetness.
Ground ginger
Adds the spice flavour that defines the toffee.

The step that matters

Adding the ginger at the 'ball' stage. The ball stage means the sugar has concentrated to the right level. Adding ginger too early leaves the toffee soft and sticky, while going too far past this point risks scorching and a hard, bitter result.

“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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