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Dessert

English Butter-scotch

A British confection made from sugar, butter, cream of tartar, lemon extract, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

English Butter-scotch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the toffee

  1. Dissolve the sugar in cold water.

  2. Add the butter and cream of tartar.

  3. Boil without stirring until it cracks when dropped into cold water.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Add lemon extract.

Set and mark

  1. Pour into well-buttered tins.

  2. When nearly cold, mark out in squares.

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. Butter + creamtop 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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Granulated sugar
Forms the base of the candy and sets hard as the syrup cools.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the candy.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallising, keeping the candy smooth.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until it cracks when dropped into cold water. Stirring can trigger sugar crystals that make the candy grainy. The syrup must reach the hard-crack stage so it sets firm and brittle once cooled.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream. 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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Pie 26Candy 12brittle 4Filling 3Squares 3 See all 152 →

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