Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Sugar Kisses
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Melt the sugar in a saucepan over medium heat.
Mix in the juice of the sweet orange.
Allow the mixture to boil.
Shape and stamp
Drop spoonfuls onto a slab or parchment paper.
Before they cool, stamp each drop with a wafer stamp.
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.
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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
- Pounded sugar
- Melts and sets into the crisp, brittle body of each kiss.
- Sweet orange juice
- Adds moisture and bright citrus flavour to the melted sugar.
The step that matters
Stamp before the drops cool. Melted sugar hardens quickly as it cools, so the drops must be stamped while still soft or the pattern will not take.
“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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