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Peanut Butter Fudge

A sweet fudge made with milk, confectioner's sugar, and peanut butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peanut Butter Fudge

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Combine sweet milk, confectioner's sugar, and peanut butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for exactly 5 minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Stir until thick, then cool.

  2. Cut 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + peanuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Peanut + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Confectioner's sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, dissolving into the milk and firming as the fudge sets.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that dissolves the sugar and gives the fudge a creamy texture.
Peanut butter
Adds fat and peanut flavor, helping keep the fudge soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Boil for exactly 5 minutes. Boiling concentrates the sugar, and the time at the boil controls how firm the fudge becomes. Boiling too briefly leaves it soft and runny, while boiling too long makes it hard and grainy as it cools.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Cocoafits better
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter. 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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