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Dessert

Mint Tablets

Mint tablets are a hard candy made from sugar, water, cream of tartar, and peppermint oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mint Tablets

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil sugar, water, and cream of tartar together until the syrup forms a soft ball when dropped into water.

  2. Add 3 drops of oil of peppermint and stir until it begins to grain.

  3. While still runny, pour the mixture into tiny buttered patty tins.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + pepperminttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together632 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Peppermint + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together958 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides the sweetness and, once boiled and cooled, sets into the firm body of the tablet.
Cream of tartar
Adds a little acidity that helps keep sugar crystals small, so the syrup stays smooth.
Oil of peppermint
Supplies the mint aroma and flavour that define the tablets.

The step that matters

Pour while still runny. Once the syrup begins to grain, it crystallises and thickens quickly. Pouring it before that point lets it fill the patty tins evenly and produce smooth tablets.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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