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Dessert

Butter-scotch

A sweet candy made from sugar, water, butter, and vanilla, cooked until firm and cut into oblong pieces.

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 ↓

Butter-scotch

Ingredients

Directions

Dissolve the sugar

  1. Mix cream of tartar and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Pour water over the mixture and let it stand until the sugar dissolves.

Cook the candy

  1. Cook in a pan over moderate heat, covered, until it hardens on a spoon.

  2. Add butter and vanilla, then pour into tins.

Cut and store

  1. Once cool, cut into oblong pieces and wrap in oiled paper.

  2. Store in a cool place.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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, when cooked, sets into a hard, brittle candy.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from recrystallising into grainy crystals.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother bite.
Vanilla flavoring
Adds aroma and a rounded sweet flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking until it hardens on a spoon. Sugar syrup's texture depends on its final temperature: stopping too early leaves the candy sticky, while cooking too long makes it bitter or burnt. Watching the spoon test closely keeps the result hard but not scorched.

“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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Pie 26Candy 12brittle 4Filling 3Squares 3 See all 152 →

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