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 ↓
Stock Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the confectionery sugar in enough water.
Boil the mixture until it reaches a crisp stage.
Test the candy by dropping a bit into water.
Add the cream of tartar.
Add flavoring just before removing from heat.
Do not stir to avoid graining.
Pour and pull
Pour the mixture onto greased tins.
Begin pulling the candy before it cools in the middle.
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.
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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
- Confectionery sugar
- Forms the sweet base that sets into the candy's structure as the syrup cools.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar crystals from forming large grains.
The step that matters
Do not stir the boiling syrup. Stirring can knock sugar crystals loose into the syrup, which then seed large grains and make the candy grainy instead of smooth. Keeping it undisturbed lets the syrup cook to the right concentration without premature crystallisation.
“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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