Skip to main content
Dessert

Peppermint Drops

A hard candy made from sugar, water, vinegar, and peppermint oil.

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

Why it works: Vinegar and peppermint work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 769 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Peppermint Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, water, and vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until the mixture reaches the desired consistency.

Finish and shape

  1. Beat the mixture quickly with a fork.

  2. Before it cools, add peppermint oil and beat thoroughly.

  3. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered 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. Vinegar + pepperminttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together769 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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

Sugar
Forms the sweet, hard candy base as it cooks and sets when cooled.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallising too early.
Peppermint oil
Provides the strong mint flavour that defines the drops.

The step that matters

Add peppermint oil before the mixture cools. Once the syrup cools and stiffens it no longer blends evenly, so the oil must be beaten in while the mixture is still hot and fluid to spread the flavour throughout.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Peppermintthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar. 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.

More peppermint drops recipes

Lemon 4 See all 70 →

You might also like

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