Name: White Fondant
Ingredients: 234 lbs sugar; 114 cups hot water; 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

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

234 lbs sugar
114 cups hot water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine sugar, hot water, and cream of tartar in a smooth granite saucepan.
Stir the mixture and heat gradually to boiling point.
Boil without stirring until the syrup reaches 238°F (soft ball stage).
Wash off sugar adhering to the sides of the kettle with a hand dipped in cold water.

Cool and work the fondant

Pour the syrup slowly onto a slightly oiled marble slab.
Let it cool for a few minutes, then scrape it to one end of the marble.
Work the fondant with a wooden spatula until it becomes white and creamy.
Knead with your hands until perfectly smooth.

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.

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: Forms the sweet syrup, and its crystals set the fine, smooth texture of the fondant.
Hot water: Dissolves the sugar so it can be heated into an even, clear syrup.
Cream of tartar: Its acidity helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the fondant smooth.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until 238°F. Stirring hot syrup can trigger sugar crystals to form early, making the fondant grainy. Sugar clinging to the pan sides can also fall back in and seed crystals, so washing it down with cold water helps keep the texture smooth.

“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.