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 ↓
Cream Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan.
Dissolve the sugar and bring to a boil without stirring until it reaches a brittle stage.
Just before it is done, add the cream of tartar.
Flavor the mixture to your taste.
Shape and finish
Pour the mixture into buttered pans.
Once cool enough to handle, stretch the candy until it is perfectly white.
Cut into desired shapes.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- White sugar
- Forms the sweet, glassy base that sets into brittle candy as the syrup cooks.
- Cream of tartar
- Its acidity helps keep the sugar from crystallizing, so the candy stays smooth.
The step that matters
Boil without stirring. Stirring the syrup can trigger sugar crystals to form, which makes the candy grainy instead of smooth. Letting it boil undisturbed keeps the sugar dissolved while it reaches the brittle stage.
“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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