Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
After Dinner Mints
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the sugar
Combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a large pot.
Cook the mixture until it reaches 270°F (132°C).
Pour the cooked mixture onto a slab and let it cool.
Pull and shape
Fold the cooled mixture up.
Pull the folded mixture on a hook while flavoring delicately, avoiding twisting the air out of the mixture.
Place the mixture on a spinning table.
Pull the mixture out to the desired thickness.
Cut the mixture into shapes using a butter cup cutter, shears, or run it through rollers.
Set and store
Let the mints set until grained.
Store the mints in jars to keep them soft or crystallize for sale.
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 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
- Sugar
- Provides the sweetness and, once cooked and cooled, the crystalline body of the mints.
- Cream of tartar
- Its acidity helps prevent large sugar crystals from forming, keeping the candy smooth.
The step that matters
Cooking to 270°F (132°C). The cooking temperature determines how much water remains in the sugar, which sets the final firmness. Stopping early leaves the mints soft and sticky, while cooking too far makes them brittle.
“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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