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Dessert

Maple Cream

A sweet, thickened sugar mixture made with brown sugar, butter, cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Maple Cream

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Maple Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Stir together brown sugar, butter, and cream or rich milk in a large bowl.

  2. Dissolve cream of tartar in water, add to mixture, and stir well for a few minutes.

  3. Place mixture over medium heat and boil for several minutes, stirring lightly to prevent settling.

  4. Test mixture in very cold water until it forms a soft ball.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool.

Beat and set

  1. Stir vigorously until mixture reaches consistency of heavy cream.

  2. Add vanilla, pour into buttered pan, and cut into squares when cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and the caramel-like maple flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture in the finished cream.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and milk solids that make the candy creamy rather than hard.
Cream of tartar
An acid that keeps sugar crystals small, helping the texture stay smooth.

The step that matters

Stirring after cooling. Stirring while the mixture cools and thickens controls sugar crystal formation. Stirring too early or too little can leave the cream grainy or cause it to set hard.

“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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