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Maple Cream

A candy of brown sugar, milk and butter cooked into soft cream centres, shaped into balls and dipped in chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Maple Cream

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Maple Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the maple base

  1. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, milk, and butter.

  2. Stir continuously while cooking until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into buttered tins.

  4. Stir until cold.

Make the cream centers

  1. To make the cream center, boil sugar and thick cream together.

  2. Test in cold water until a soft, creamy ball forms.

  3. Once cool enough to handle, beat the mixture until very white.

  4. Add a few drops of vanilla.

  5. Shape the mixture into small balls, about the size of marbles.

Coat and dry

  1. For the chocolate coating, mix half of the fondant with melted chocolate.

  2. Dip the cream balls into the chocolate mixture.

  3. Place them on greased paper to dry.

  4. Use any remaining melted chocolate and fondant to create plain chocolate candies.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  4. Walnut + chocolatetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and the caramel-like maple flavour of the base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the base a smoother texture.
Thick, sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture to the centers, keeping them soft and creamy.
Sugar
Forms the fondant that sets into the soft, white cream centers.
Melted chocolate
Forms a thin coating over the cream centers.

The step that matters

Test in cold water until a soft, creamy ball forms. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set soft. Too little cooking leaves the centers runny, while too much makes them hard and grainy when beaten.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, cream, chocolate):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, cream, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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