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Dessert

After-dinner Mints

A mint candy made from sugar, butter, water, and peppermint essence, rolled in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

After-dinner Mints

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, and butter.

  2. Boil until the mixture is very brittle when dropped into cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and add the essence of peppermint.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased pan to cool.

Shape and store

  1. Once cool enough to handle, pull the mixture until it turns white.

  2. Cut small pieces with scissors and roll them in powdered sugar.

  3. Store in a glass jar with a tight cover for 3 to 4 days until creamy.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + pepperminttop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together958 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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

Granulated sugar
Forms the crystalline candy base that sets into a firm, sweet mint.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the candy's texture and richness.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be cooked evenly to the right concentration.

The step that matters

Boiling to the brittle stage. Sugar syrup must reach the correct concentration to set firm. Undercooking leaves the mints soft and sticky, while overcooking makes them hard and prone to scorching.

Swap the peppermint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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