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Dessert

Salt Water Taffy

A chewy candy made from boiled sugar, glucose, butter, and glycerine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Salt Water Taffy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine boiling water and glucose in a pot and heat until dissolved.

  2. Boil sugar in another pot until fully dissolved.

  3. Add butter to the sugar mixture and stir until melted.

  4. Add glycerine and boil again until it reaches a soft boil. Do not let it become brittle.

Pull and shape

  1. Cool the mixture, then pull it until it becomes light and fluffy.

  2. Cut into pieces and roll in waxed paper.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the taffy smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the structure that sets as the taffy cools.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer bite and a richer flavour.
Glycerine
Acts as a humectant, helping the taffy stay soft and moist.

The step that matters

Add glycerine and boil to a soft boil. Overheating pushes the sugar concentration too high, so the candy sets brittle and hard instead of soft and chewy. Stopping at the soft-boil point controls the final texture.

“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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