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 ↓
Sugar Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Combine sugar, hot water, vinegar, and cream of tartar in a saucepan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
Continue cooking without stirring until the mixture reaches the hard crack stage.
Pour the mixture onto a greased surface and spread it out thin.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Vinegar + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,064 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the candy's structure and sweetness as it cooks and hardens into glass.
- Vinegar
- Acidity helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing, giving a smoother, clearer candy.
- Cream of tartar
- Acid that inverts some sugar, further discouraging graininess in the finished candy.
The step that matters
Continue cooking without stirring until the mixture reaches the hard crack stage.. Stirring at this point can trigger sugar crystals to form, making the candy grainy. Hard crack stage is reached at high temperature, so the candy sets brittle when cooled.
“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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