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After Dinner Mints

After Dinner Mints are peppermint‑flavored sugar candies made with gum arabic and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

After Dinner Mints

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve gum arabic in water.

  2. Add sugar and cream of tartar.

  3. Boil until it forms a ball in water.

  4. Stir in peppermint essence.

  5. Adjust for strength if desired.

Shape and set

  1. Pour mixture onto a marble slab.

  2. Let cool until manageable.

  3. Pull the mixture until it turns creamy white.

  4. Form into even sticks.

  5. Mark sections with a silver knife.

  6. Store in a box for 1-2 days until creamy and easily separable.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + pepperminttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together632 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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
Provides the sweet base and forms the crystalline structure of the mints.
Gum arabic
Acts as a stabilizer that keeps the sugar from crystallizing too coarsely.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing and keeps the texture smooth.
Water
Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until it forms a ball in water. Boiling to the correct sugar concentration determines the final texture. Too little cooking leaves the mints soft and sticky, while overcooking makes them hard and brittle.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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