Skip to main content
Dessert

Peppermint Drops, Another Way

A confection of powdered sugar and egg whites flavored with peppermint oil, piped onto paper.

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

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Peppermint Drops, Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the powdered sugar with the egg whites.

  2. Add the oil of peppermint and beat well.

Drop the drops

  1. Use a small piping bag to drop the mixture onto writing paper.

  2. For colored peppermint drops, follow the same method and drop them on paper.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + pepperminttop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together850 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Powdered loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, forming the body of the soft paste.
Egg whites
Provide structure and binding, helping the paste hold its shape when piped.
Oil of peppermint
Supplies the aroma and flavor that defines the drops.

The step that matters

Add the oil of peppermint and beat well.. Thorough beating blends the sugar fully into the egg whites, producing a smooth, stiff paste. A loose or under-beaten mixture spreads on the paper instead of holding a neat drop shape.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes