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Horehound Candy for Hoarseness

A candy made from horehound, syrup, sugar, butter, lemon juice, and potash, used to soothe hoarseness.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Horehound Candy for Hoarseness

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Infuse the horehound in 1 cup of boiling water until fully extracted.

  2. Strain the horehound, reserving the liquid.

Cook and set

  1. In a pot, combine the syrup, brown sugar, butter, lemon juice, potash, and the reserved horehound liquid.

  2. Boil the mixture as you would for ordinary candy.

  3. Pour into greased plates and let cool.

  4. Cut into squares.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Syrup
Provides the bulk of the sugar base that cooks into the candy's body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour to the candy.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, less brittle texture and richer mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps prevent sugar crystallising.
Potash
Alkaline salt that changes the sugar mixture's chemistry, affecting its set and colour.
Horehound
Supplies the herbal, bitter flavour that defines the candy.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture as you would for ordinary candy. Sugar syrup must reach the correct temperature to set into firm candy. Too little boiling leaves it sticky, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle or scorches the sugars.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, 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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