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Dessert

White Fondant

Fondant is a sugar glaze made by boiling sugar, water, and cream of tartar until soft ball stage, then cooled and worked.

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 ↓

White Fondant

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, hot water, and cream of tartar in a smooth granite saucepan.

  2. Stir the mixture and heat gradually to boiling point.

  3. Boil without stirring until the syrup reaches 238°F (soft ball stage).

  4. Wash off any sugar adhering to the sides of the kettle with a hand dipped in cold water.

Work the fondant

  1. Pour the syrup slowly onto a slightly oiled marble slab.

  2. Let it cool for a few minutes, then scrape it to one end of the marble.

  3. Work the fondant with a wooden spatula until it becomes white and creamy.

  4. Knead with your hands until perfectly smooth.

Store

  1. Transfer to a bowl and cover with oiled paper to exclude air.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves into the syrup that later sets into fine crystals, giving fondant its smooth body and sweetness.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep sugar crystals small, reducing graininess and keeping the fondant smooth.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until the syrup reaches 238°F. Stirring during boiling can jolt sugar out of solution and form large crystals, leaving a grainy result. Reaching 238°F sets the sugar concentration so the fondant stays soft and pliable once worked.

“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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