Skip to main content
Dessert

Walnut Candies

A sweet treat made from boiled sugar, butter, syrup, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Walnut Candies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the brown sugar and water until clear.

  2. Add cream of tartar, tartaric acid, butter, and golden syrup, and boil until a drop in cold water sets.

Shape the candy

  1. Pour onto an oiled flat dish and place walnuts on top.

  2. Fold the edges over into the middle with a greased knife, mixing in the walnuts.

  3. Oil your hands and scissors, then cut the candy into thick strips.

  4. Pull and stretch the strips until about 1 inch wide, then cut into cushion shapes.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the main sweetness and the caramel flavour of the candy.
Golden syrup
Keeps the candy soft and smooth by inhibiting sugar crystallisation.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, tender texture and mouthfeel.
Chopped walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour against the chewy candy.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallising too early.

The step that matters

Boil until a drop in cold water sets. The sugar must reach the right concentration to set firm but chewy. Stopping too early leaves the candy sticky, while boiling too long makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, butter, cream. 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 walnut candies recipes

Maple 3

You might also like

Oranges in SyrupOranges in Syrup9 recipesSyrup SauceSyrup Sauce6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes