Name: Vanilla Tablet
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; ½ cup butter; 1 cup cream; 2 teaspoons vanilla

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 ↓

Vanilla Tablet

Ingredients

2 cups sugar
½ cup butter
1 cup cream
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

Make the tablet

Boil sugar, butter, and cream to 250°F (120°C), stirring vigorously.
Remove from heat and add vanilla, stirring again.
Pour into a greased tin and mark into squares.

Finish

Once cold, break into pieces.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,050 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,301 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar: Forms the crystalline body of the tablet and provides its sweetness.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the tablet smooth and tender rather than hard.
Cream: Supplies milk fats and solids that give the tablet a creamy, softer texture.

The step that matters

Boil to 250°F (120°C) while stirring vigorously. Sugar concentration at this temperature sets the firmness of the tablet as it cools. Stirring keeps the mixture from scorching on the base of the pan and helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, which would make the texture grainy.

“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.