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 ↓
Fondant for Hand-mades
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 240°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the syrup
Combine sugar and cream of tartar in a pot.
Cook over medium heat until it reaches a soft ball stage (about 240°F or 115°C).
For a stiffer fondant, cook slightly longer.
Cream the fondant
Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.
Cream the mixture before it gets completely cold to ensure it's workable.
You can work the fondant in the pan if desired.
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
- Sugar
- Forms the body of the fondant, providing sweetness and the fine crystals that make it smooth.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the fondant smooth.
The step that matters
Creaming before the mixture gets completely cold. Sugar syrup that is stirred or worked after cooling forms crystals. Creaming while it is cooled but still workable encourages many tiny crystals, which gives a smooth texture. Working it when too hot or fully cold can produce a grainy or hard result.
“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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