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Dessert

Maple Cream Fudge

A fudge made with maple sugar, cream, and pecans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Maple Cream Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fudge

  1. Break the maple sugar into small pieces.

  2. Add the cream and cook until it forms a soft ball in cold water.

Set in tins

  1. Spread the pecans in large pieces in buttered tins.

  2. Pour the cream mixture over the pecans and mark into squares.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + pecanstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Sugar + pecanstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,962 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

Maple sugar
Provides the sweetness and the maple flavour that defines the fudge.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the fudge a smooth, rich texture.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasted nutty flavour against the soft fudge.

The step that matters

Cooking to a soft ball. Sugar syrup must reach the correct temperature to set properly. Cooking too little leaves the fudge soft and runny, while cooking too long makes it hard and grainy. The cold-water test checks the sugar's concentration.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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