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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the fondant
Mix sugar, cream of tartar, and cold water in an aluminum kettle.
Boil without stirring until it forms a soft ball when dropped in water.
Pour immediately onto a marble slab and let cool.
Shape
Stir with a flat wooden spatula until it becomes stiff.
Knead with hands, roll into small balls, or cut into squares.
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
- Fine granulated sugar
- Forms the crystalline body of the fondant once it is boiled and worked.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the texture smooth.
The step that matters
Boil without stirring until a soft ball forms. Stirring during boiling can trigger sugar crystallization, producing a grainy rather than smooth fondant. Reaching the soft-ball stage concentrates the sugar to the right firmness for setting and shaping.
“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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