Name: Ginger Tablets, or Drops
Ingredients: 10 lbs sugar; 2 quarts water; 1 teaspoon cream of tartar; extract of ginger to taste

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 ↓

Ginger Tablets, or Drops

Ingredients

10 lbs sugar
2 quarts water
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
extract of ginger to taste

Directions

Make the syrup

In a large pot, combine sugar and water.
Add cream of tartar and cook the mixture until it reaches 310°F (154°C).

Shape the drops

Pour the cooked mixture onto a slab.
Add extract of ginger to your desired flavor and knead the mixture until it is stiff.
Once cooled, run the mixture through drop or tablet rollers.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Cream + gingertop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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: Forms the main body of the candy and sets firm as the mixture cools.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the sugar mixture, helping prevent crystallization for a smoother candy.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture to 310°F (154°C). The final temperature determines how much water remains. Cooking too little leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too far makes it hard and brittle. Hitting the target controls the texture once cooled.