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Dessert

Cinnamon Drops or Sweetmeats

A small candy made from cinnamon, sugar, water, and egg whites, dropped onto paper and dried or baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cinnamon Drops or Sweetmeats

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the cinnamon in a mortar and sift it through a fine sieve.

  2. Mix the cinnamon with the sugar, water, and whisked egg whites.

Shape

  1. Using a teaspoon, drop the mixture onto stiff, white writing paper.

Set and cool

  1. Dry or bake in a very cool oven until set.

  2. Let them cool completely before removing from the 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. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,058 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cinnamon
Provides the main flavour and aroma of the drops.
Pounded loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it dries, helps the drops set crisp.
Egg whites
Whisked to a froth, they add structure and lightness and help bind the mixture.

The step that matters

Drying or baking in a very cool oven until set. Low, gentle heat dries the sugar and egg white slowly so the drops set without spreading or browning. A hotter oven can melt the sugar, cause spreading, and brown the surface before the centre has dried.

“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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