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Lemon and Peppermint Drops

Lemon and Peppermint Drops are sugar candies made by cooking sugar with water and flavoring, then dropping onto paper to dry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and peppermint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,082 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon and Peppermint Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar and just enough water to form a stiff paste.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring continuously, until it nearly boils.

  3. Remove from heat just before it reaches a full boil.

  4. Allow the syrup to cool slightly while stirring, then add the peppermint or lemon essence to taste.

Drop and dry

  1. Tilt the saucepan to let the syrup run out, and use a stiff wire to drop the mixture onto smooth white paper or tins.

  2. Let the drops dry in a warm place for a few hours.

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 + pepperminttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Dry granulated sugar
Forms the bulk of the drops and sets into a hard, glossy candy as it cools.
Water
Dissolves the sugar into a stiff paste so it can be heated evenly without scorching.

The step that matters

Remove from heat just before it reaches a full boil. Sugar syrup taken past the nearly-boiling point keeps concentrating and can turn brittle or grainy when it sets, so stopping early keeps the drops smooth and workable.

“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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