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Dessert

Peppermint Drops

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
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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 ↓

Peppermint Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cold water, and cream of tartar.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes without stirring, allowing the sugar to melt slowly to prevent burning.

  3. Add the oil of peppermint while still on the heat.

Shape the drops

  1. Remove from the stove and beat with an egg beater until it falls in long drops.

  2. Quickly drop the mixture onto paraffin paper to cool.

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 structure and provides its sweetness as it sets.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from turning grainy or crystallizing.
Oil of peppermint
Provides the main minty flavor and aroma.

The step that matters

Beating until it falls in long drops. As the syrup cools and is agitated, sugar begins to crystallize. Stopping at the right point controls the texture, so the mixture is thick enough to hold a drop but still soft enough to shape before it hardens.

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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