Why it works: Sugar and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,592 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
39 Superfine Transparent Mint Lozenges
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the sugar
Pass the sugar through a coarse sieve.
Sift the sugar through a moderately fine sieve to separate the finest grains.
Make and shape the lozenges
Mix the sifted sugar with dissolved gum tragacanth to form a thick paste.
Flavor the paste with essential oil of mint.
Shape the paste into lozenges and allow to dry.
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.
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Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,592 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coarse sugar
- Forms the bulk of the lozenge and provides sweetness and body.
- Gum tragacanth
- Binds the sugar into a thick paste that holds its shape when dried.
- Essential oil of mint
- Adds the mint aroma and flavor to the lozenges.
The step that matters
Mix the sifted sugar with dissolved gum tragacanth to form a thick paste.. The gum must be fully dissolved before mixing, otherwise lumps form and the paste binds unevenly. The paste should be thick enough to shape without slumping, so the lozenges hold their form as they dry.
“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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