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Dessert

Sunshine Candy

A sweet confection of sugar, Karo syrup, water, egg whites, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sunshine Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix sugar, Karo syrup, and water in a saucepan and cook as for icing.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Make and shape the candy

  1. Pour the sugar mixture into the beaten egg whites and beat until nearly cold.

  2. Fold in the nuts.

  3. Pour the mixture onto a marble surface and cut into pieces once cooled.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Syrup + nutstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Egg + nutstop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,624 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet, firm candy body as it cooks and then sets.
Karo syrup
Interferes with sugar crystals, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the candy a light, airy structure.
Nuts
Add crunch and texture that contrast with the soft candy.

The step that matters

Beating the syrup into the egg whites until nearly cold. The hot syrup must be beaten into the whites while they are still foamy. Beating too little may leave the candy dense or sticky, while letting it cool too far before pouring can make it stiff and hard to spread.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup, egg):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, egg. 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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