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 ↓
Small Mint Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Cook sugar, water, and cream of tartar to a soft ball stage.
Keep the syrup warm near the fire.
Pour about 1 pint of syrup into a lip pan.
Add 2-3 tablespoons of powdered sugar and stir until it turns whitish.
Drop small amounts, the size of a dime, onto sheets of tin.
Cut the drops from the lip pan using a wire.
If the mixture thickens, add more syrup and continue until all boiled sugar is used.
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
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