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Dessert

Butter Taffy

A hard candy made from sugar, butter, molasses, vinegar, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Butter Taffy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the taffy

  1. Combine cream of tartar, vinegar, butter, sugar, water, and molasses in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for 20 to 30 minutes until it reaches the hard ball stage.

Cool and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered pans and let it cool.

  2. Once cooled, cut into pieces.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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 base that hardens into the taffy's chewy structure as the syrup cooks.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar crystals from forming and keeping the texture smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallising, contributing to a smooth, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer bite in the finished taffy.
Molasses
Adds depth of flavour and colour, and some moisture that contributes to chewiness.

The step that matters

Boiling to the hard ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set into the correct texture. Stopping too early leaves taffy sticky and soft, while overcooking makes it brittle and hard. Watch the syrup closely near the end of boiling.

“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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