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Peppermint Pastille Drops

A peppermint candy made by dropping a sugar‑water‑essence mixture onto paper and drying.

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 ↓

Peppermint Pastille Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine water and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add essence of peppermint and mix well.

Shape the pastilles

  1. Drop the mixture onto a sheet of stiff paper.

  2. Once firm, turn the paper upside down and brush the reverse side with water.

  3. Gently remove the drops with a knife onto a dry sieve.

Dry and store

  1. Move the sieve over a slow stove fire to dry the drops.

  2. Store in well-stopped glass jars in a dry place.

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

Sugar
Forms the sweet, firm body of the pastille as it dries and sets.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so the mixture can be dropped and later dried.

The step that matters

Move the sieve over a slow stove fire to dry the drops. Sugar syrup can brown or turn sticky if overheated, so gentle, low heat is needed to dry the drops without scorching them while they harden.

“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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