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Dessert

Peppermint Drops with White Stripes

A candy made by boiling sugar, glucose, and syrup, then pulling and cutting into peppermint‑flavored strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Peppermint Drops with White Stripes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Boil water, glucose, sugar, and syrup until the thermometer shows 290°F (143°C).

  2. Lift the mixture from the fire.

  3. Pour the mixture onto a slab, turning the ends toward the center to prevent cooling.

  4. Cut about 1 pound from the mass.

Pull the white portion

  1. Pull the cut piece swiftly on a hook until it turns white.

  2. Keep the white piece warm in front of a lighted table furnace.

  3. Flavor the remaining 9 pounds with 15 drops of peppermint oil.

  4. Fold the mixture to distribute the oil evenly.

Stripe and shape

  1. Pull the white piece into a foot‑long strip, about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Place the strip on top of the brown mass, then pull additional strips.

  3. Lay the strips about ¼ inch apart until you have 6 or 7 stripes.

  4. Fold the batch so the white stripes are on the outside and shape into a neck.

  5. Draw out the batch to about ½ inch thickness.

  6. Cut into ½ inch squares using a buttercup machine.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Syrup + pepperminttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Glucose
Helps prevent sugar crystals from forming, keeping the candy smooth and glassy.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the hard, glassy body of the candy.
Syrup
Interferes with crystallization, keeping the candy smooth rather than grainy.
Peppermint oil
Supplies the mint aroma and flavor throughout the candy.

The step that matters

Boil to 290°F (143°C). The final sugar temperature sets the candy's hardness on cooling. Stopping early leaves it sticky and soft, while overcooking makes it brittle and prone to scorching.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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