Skip to main content
Dessert

Peppermint Drops

A small peppermint candy made from lemon juice, powdered sugar, and peppermint oil.

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

Why it works: Lemon and peppermint match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,583 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Peppermint Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Squeeze the lemons into a bowl.

  2. Mix the lemon juice with sifted powdered sugar to a thick consistency.

  3. Add peppermint oil to taste and mix well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and heat over low flame, stirring with a wooden spoon for 5 minutes.

Shape and set

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto writing paper using a knife, ensuring they are the same size.

  2. Allow the drops to cool until firm, then remove them from the paper and store in a box.

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. Lemon + pepperminttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,583 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and body, thickening the lemon juice into a mixture that holds its shape.
Lemons
Supply the acidity and juice that give the drops their sharp, fresh flavour.
Peppermint oil
Gives the drops their strong minty aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture over low flame. Gentle, steady heat with constant stirring keeps the sugar from scorching or caramelising unevenly, which would change the flavour and colour. Too much heat can also make the mixture too runny to hold a shape when dropped.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. 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.

More peppermint drops recipes

Lemon 4 See all 70 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes