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Dessert

Everton Toffee

A caramelized sugar confection made with butter, water, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Everton Toffee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the toffee

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the water.

  2. Add the cream of tartar and boil to the hard ball stage.

  3. Remove from heat and add the butter in small pieces.

  4. Boil again to the crack stage.

Set and cut

  1. Pour into buttered or oiled tins.

  2. Once set, mark into squares or oblongs.

Wrap

  1. When completely cold, wrap each piece in wax paper and then in tinfoil.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Demerara sugar
Provides the sweetness and bulk of the toffee, along with its caramel flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother bite to the set toffee.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that helps prevent sugar crystals, keeping the toffee smooth.

The step that matters

Boil again to the crack stage. Hardness depends on the sugar reaching the right temperature. Stopping early leaves the toffee sticky and soft, while overheating makes it bitter and dark or burnt.

“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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