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Dessert

Lemon and Peppermint Drops

A simple candy made from sugar, water, and peppermint or lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and peppermint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,082 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon and Peppermint Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar and just enough water to form a stiff paste.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring continuously until bubbles begin to rise, but do not let it boil.

  3. Remove from heat and let the syrup cool slightly while stirring.

  4. Add the peppermint or lemon essence to taste.

Drop and dry

  1. Tilt the saucepan to drop the mixture onto smooth white paper or tins using a stiff wire.

  2. Allow the drops to dry in a warm place for a few hours.

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 + 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 hard, glossy candy base as it sets on cooling.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be heated evenly into a syrup.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture boil. Bubbling only begins at a gentle heat while the sugar is still dissolving. Boiling past that point concentrates the syrup and can make the drops grainy or cause them to set unevenly.

“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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