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Dessert

Excellent Honey

A syrup made from sugar, water, honey, and peppermint essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Honey and peppermint work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 345 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

Excellent Honey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a pot.

  2. Gradually bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

Finish the syrup

  1. Once cool, stir in the bees' honey and peppermint essence.

  2. For a better flavor, use white sugar, reduce water to 1½ pounds, and increase honey to 1½ pounds.

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. Honey + pepperminttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  2. Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,932 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
Provides sweetness and body, and dissolves into the water to form the syrup.
Bees' honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps keep the syrup from crystallising.

The step that matters

Stir in the honey once the syrup has cooled. Honey's delicate aroma and flavor can dull when exposed to high heat, so adding it after cooling helps keep its taste fresh.

Swap the peppermint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, honey. 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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