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Dessert

Pulled Nut Candy

A sweet candy made from molasses, brown sugar, butter, and walnuts, boiled until hard and pulled into sticks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pulled Nut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine baking molasses, brown sugar, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture until it hardens in water.

  3. Stir in the walnuts.

Shape and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto a buttered dish.

  2. Once cool enough, pull the candy until done.

  3. Cut into sticks.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Molasses + walnuttop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together560 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking molasses
Adds deep flavor, dark color, and moisture, and keeps the candy chewy.
Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the candy's firm structure as the syrup cooks down.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother bite and softens the texture of the candy.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the chewy candy.

The step that matters

Boil until the mixture hardens in water. Boiling drives off most of the water, and the sugar concentration determines how firmly the candy sets as it cools. Too little boiling leaves it sticky; too much can scorch the sugar and make it bitter.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter. 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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