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Dessert

Pea-nut Candy

A brittle candy made with sugar, butter, and peanuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pea-nut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Dissolve sugar and cream of tartar in cold water.

  2. Set over moderate heat and cook until brittle, stirring in butter.

Prepare the peanuts and tins

  1. Shell the peanuts and rub off the inner skin.

  2. Place a layer of peanuts, two deep, in well-buttered tins.

Pour and finish

  1. Pour the candy over the peanuts and let it cool.

  2. Cut or break into convenient pieces.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

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

  5. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the candy and hardens into the brittle, crisp glassy structure as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the brittle's bite and gives it a rich, tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing, so the candy stays smooth.
Peanuts (in the method)
Provide crunch and nutty flavor that the set candy surrounds.

The step that matters

Cook the sugar to the brittle stage. Cooking the sugar to the brittle stage decides the texture. Undercooked sugar stays soft and sticky, while overcooked sugar turns bitter and dark. Watch the colour closely as it nears the end.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Filbertfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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

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