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Dessert

White Fondant

Fondant is a white sugar syrup cooked to the soft-ball stage and then cooled and kneaded into a smooth, creamy confection.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Fondant

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, hot water, and cream of tartar in a smooth granite saucepan.

  2. Stir the mixture and heat gradually to boiling point.

  3. Boil without stirring until the syrup reaches 238°F (soft ball stage).

  4. Wash off sugar that adheres to the sides of the kettle with a hand dipped in cold water.

Work the fondant

  1. Pour the syrup slowly onto a slightly oiled marble slab.

  2. Let it cool for a few minutes, then scrape it to one end of the marble.

  3. Work the fondant with a wooden spatula until it becomes white and creamy.

  4. Knead with your hands until perfectly smooth.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Forms the sweet base, and as it crystallises during working it gives fondant its soft, opaque body.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that inhibits large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the fondant smooth.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until the syrup reaches 238°F. Stirring while the syrup boils can trigger premature crystallisation, leaving a grainy texture. Sugar crystals on the pan sides can also seed unwanted crystals, which is why they are washed down with cold water. Reaching the target temperature controls the water content and therefore the final firmness.

“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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