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Dessert

Iceland Moss Deops

A candy made from boiled Iceland moss, sugar, and cream of tartar, flavored with anise oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Iceland Moss Deops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil Iceland Moss in water for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture and add sugar and cream of tartar (or glucose).

  3. Bring to a boil and color it deep red.

  4. Cook to the same degree as Hoarhound.

  5. Flavor with a few drops of oil of anise.

Shape

  1. Pour onto a slab between iron bars and mark with a caramel marker.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + anisetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sugar + anisetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Iceland moss
Provides the gelling body that gives the candy its characteristic texture.
Sugar
Forms the sweet, hard candy base when cooked to temperature.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing, keeping the candy smooth.

The step that matters

Cook to the same degree as Hoarhound. Sugar candy sets hard only when cooked to the right concentration. Undercooked syrup stays sticky and soft, while overcooked syrup turns bitter and brittle. The record gives no exact temperature, so match the reference batch closely.

Swap the anise

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Anisethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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.

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