Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ginger Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar and glucose in water and cook to 230°F (110°C).
Pour the mixture onto a slab.
Flavour and shape
Add the tartaric acid and ginger extract to the batch.
Knead the mixture until well combined.
Shape the dough and run it through small lemon drop rollers.
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 + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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
- Provides the bulk of the sweetness and, once cooked and cooled, the firm structure of the drops.
- Glucose
- Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the drops smooth and less grainy.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sourness that sharpens the sweetness, as in classic lemon drops.
- Ginger extract
- Supplies the ginger aroma and flavour.
The step that matters
Cooking the syrup to 230°F (110°C). The final sugar concentration sets the texture of the drops once cooled. Stopping short leaves them soft and sticky, while cooking too far makes them hard and brittle.
“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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