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Hoarhound Drops

A herbal drop made from hoarhound herb, scrap, and water, flavored with lemon oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,096 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Hoarhound Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Place scrap and hoarhound herb in a kettle with water.

  2. Boil until scrap is completely dissolved, then strain.

  3. Cook the mixture to 300°F (150°C).

Shape the drops

  1. Pour the mixture onto a greased slab.

  2. Add a few drops of lemon oil.

  3. Knead the mixture until cool.

  4. Run the cooled mixture through a tablet or drop roller.

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. Chocolate + lemontop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Scrap
Provides the sugar base that dissolves and sets into the hard candy body.
Hoarhound herb
Supplies the bitter herbal flavour that defines the drops.
Water
Dissolves the scrap so it can be boiled and strained evenly.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture to 300°F (150°C). Sugar must reach the hard-crack stage so the candy sets firm and brittle at room temperature. Undercooked mixture stays sticky and soft, while overcooking can scorch it and give a bitter taste.

“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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