Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Cinnamon Tablet
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cinnamon sugar
Clarify and boil the sugar until it can be blown through the holes of a skimmer.
Stir in the cinnamon or oil of cinnamon until well combined.
Press the mixture against the sides of the pan with a spoon to make it smooth.
Set and cut
Grease plates with fresh butter and pour the mixture into them.
Allow to cool, then cut into square pieces.
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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,784 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Loaf sugar
- Forms the hard, glassy base that sets into the tablet as it cools.
- Cinnamon
- Provides the main flavour and aroma of the tablet.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar to the right stage. Sugar must reach the correct concentration before it is stirred in. If it is undercooked, the tablet stays soft and sticky; if overcooked, it turns brittle or bitter. The skimmer test checks that the syrup has thickened enough to set firmly as it cools.
“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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