Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ginger Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar in a pan until it reaches the 'Crack' stage.
Add a few drops of essence of Ginger just before the syrup reaches the 'Crack'.
Set and store
Pour the mixture into molds and allow to cool.
Once set, remove from molds and store in a cool place.
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 + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and, when boiled to the crack stage, hardens into a brittle candy structure.
- Essence of ginger
- Adds the ginger aroma and flavor that defines the drops.
The step that matters
Adding the ginger essence just before the crack stage. Ginger's aromatic compounds are volatile and fade with prolonged heat, so adding the essence late keeps the flavor strong. Adding it too early lets much of the aroma cook off, and the syrup can also overshoot the crack stage while you wait.
“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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