Skip to main content
Dessert

Candied Nutmegs

Candied nutmegs are nutmegs soaked, then coated with a sugar, rose-water, and gum Arabic candy, left to set for weeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rose and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,067 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Candied Nutmegs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the nutmegs in water.

  2. Lay them in an earthenware pan.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar, rose-water, and gum Arabic to candy.

Candy and set

  1. Pour the mixture over the nutmegs.

  2. Set the pan in a warm place and cover it closely.

  3. Let it stand for three weeks until the nutmegs are like rock candy.

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. Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

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

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Powdered white sugar
Forms the candy coating and provides sweetness as the syrup cooks and hardens.
Rose-water
Adds a floral aroma and liquid for dissolving and boiling the sugar.
Gum arabic
Helps keep the syrup smooth and prevents it from crystallising too quickly.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar syrup to candy. If the syrup is not boiled long enough, it stays too thin and will not harden around the nutmegs. If it is boiled too far, it turns brittle or sugary. Both affect the final texture of the candied coating.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rose. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes