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Dessert

Chocolate Fudge with Fruit

A chocolate fudge made with sugar, milk, molasses, butter, chocolate, figs, raisins, walnuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 373 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chocolate Fudge with Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fudge base

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, milk, molasses, and butter.

  2. Mix well and bring to a boil for 7 minutes.

  3. Add chocolate and boil for an additional 7 minutes.

Add the fruit and nuts

  1. Stir in figs, raisins, walnuts, and vanilla.

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. Fig + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  4. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the crystal structure that sets the fudge as it cooks and cools.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and rich mouthfeel.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and richness, and fat that softens the set.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk solids for a creamy texture.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deeper colour and a robust, slightly bitter sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling for the full time. The boiling time concentrates the sugar syrup and controls how firm the fudge sets. Stopping early leaves it soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and grainy.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, molasses, butter, chocolate, fig, raisin):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Pecansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, molasses, butter, chocolate, fig, raisin. 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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