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Dessert

Peppermint Wafers

A sweet confection made from sugar, boiling water, peppermint extract, and cream of tartar, formed into soft fondant and dropped onto paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Peppermint Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Stir constantly over low heat until dissolved.

  3. Cover the saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat for about 10 minutes, or until it threads slightly.

Finish and shape

  1. Remove from heat, cool slightly, add peppermint extract, and beat until it forms a soft cream fondant.

  2. Drop spoonfuls onto waxed 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Peppermint + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together632 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet base that cooks into a syrup and then sets into a soft, creamy fondant.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar crystals from forming a grainy texture.

The step that matters

Beating the cooled syrup into fondant. The syrup must cool slightly before beating. Beating while it is too hot yields large sugar crystals, while beating it too cool can make it hard to work. Careful cooling and beating produce a smooth, soft cream.

Swap the peppermint

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

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

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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