Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Peppermints

A hard candy made from sugar, water, cream of tartar, and peppermint oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cream Peppermints

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar.

  2. Boil rapidly until a drop forms a soft ball in cold water.

  3. Do not stir the syrup once it starts boiling to prevent graininess.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool until lukewarm.

Shape the candy

  1. Stir with a wooden paddle in one direction, adding a few drops of oil of peppermint until smooth and creamy.

  2. If the candy grains, add water and boil again.

  3. Drop onto parchment paper, a marble slab, or a glass plate.

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
Forms the candy's base structure and provides sweetness as the syrup sets.
Cream of tartar
Acidity helps keep the sugar from crystallizing too large, keeping the candy smooth.
Oil of peppermint
Adds the characteristic minty aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring while the syrup cools. Stirring hot syrup or stirring too early agitates the sugar and encourages large crystals, making the candy grainy. Letting it cool to lukewarm first, then stirring gently and steadily, lets fine crystals form evenly for a smooth, creamy texture.

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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes