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Dessert

Fondant or Cream

Fondant candy made from coffee sugar, water, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Fondant or Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Combine ½ cup water with 1 lb coffee A sugar.

  2. Let it stand for 1 hour.

  3. Dissolve the cream of tartar in a little cold water and add it to the sugar mixture.

Cook the syrup

  1. Place the pan over high heat.

  2. Stir constantly until the mixture begins to boil.

  3. Stop stirring once it boils, and do not stir the candy from the time it begins to boil until it is poured into the pan.

  4. Test the candy by dropping some into cold water; it should form a soft ball.

Cool and work the candy

  1. Pour the candy into a pan sprinkled with cold water, ensuring it is level.

  2. Let the candy cool without stirring until it is almost cold.

  3. Beat it with a large spoon or paddle.

  4. Once it turns white and begins to harden, gather it into a mass.

  5. Knead it on a marble slab or in the pan.

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

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

  2. Coffee + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Coffee a sugar
Provides the sweetness and, as tiny crystals, the smooth, soft body of the fondant.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing into a grainy texture.

The step that matters

Do not stir from the boil until the candy is poured. Stirring once the syrup boils lets sugar crystals form early and grow large, which makes the fondant grainy instead of smooth.

“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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