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Dessert

Ginger Drops

A sweet syrup made with ginger, sugar, water, and candied orange, dropped onto paper or slab.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Ginger Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix ground ginger and sifted sugar in a saucepan with water.

  2. Add pounded candied orange and a little sugar.

  3. Boil gently, stirring constantly, until the syrup snaps in cold water.

  4. Dip the pan in cold water for 1 minute.

Drop and set

  1. Pour the mixture in drops onto writing paper or an oiled slab.

  2. If the syrup boils too quickly, add a little butter; if it threatens to grain, add a little lemon juice or another acid.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ginger and sugar 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
Forms the syrup that sets into firm, glossy drops as it cools.
Ground ginger
Provides the main spiced flavour of the drops.
Candied orange
Adds sweet citrus flavour and aroma to the syrup.
Lemon juice or other acid
Helps prevent the sugar from crystallising (graining) in the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil gently until the syrup snaps in cold water. Sugar syrup sets hard only at the right concentration. Undercooked syrup stays sticky, while overcooked syrup turns brittle or caramelises. Stirring constantly and boiling gently helps the sugar dissolve fully and avoids crystals forming, which would make it grainy.

“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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