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Dessert

Maple Walnuts

A confection of walnuts coated with maple syrup and hardened frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,035 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Maple Walnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coating

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  2. Stir in enough powdered sugar to achieve a hard frosting consistency.

  3. Boil the maple sugar and water for 2-3 minutes to create a syrup.

  4. Dip the walnut meats in the syrup.

Finish the walnuts

  1. Press some of the hard frosting between the two halves of the walnut and let it harden.

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. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whipped to stiffness, it gives the frosting body and a light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Stiffens the whipped egg white into a hard frosting that holds its shape as it sets.
Maple sugar
Boiled with water to make a syrup that adds sweetness and maple flavor to the walnuts.
Walnut meats
The base that is dipped in syrup and filled with frosting.

The step that matters

Boiling the maple syrup. Boiling for only the stated 2-3 minutes concentrates the sugar enough to coat the walnuts and set as a syrup. Boiling too long can darken and harden it too much, while too short leaves it thin and sticky.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, meat. 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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