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Dessert

Cream Peppermint Drops

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cream Peppermint Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy base

  1. Combine evaporated milk, granulated sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil gently without stirring until a soft ball forms when tested in cold water.

Finish and shape

  1. Cool the mixture until tepid.

  2. Add the oil of peppermint.

  3. Beat the mixture until creamy.

  4. Quickly drop small rounds onto oiled pans using a teaspoon.

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. Evaporated milk + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Evaporated milk + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + pepperminttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together632 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. 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 sweet candy base that sets firm as it cools.
Evaporated milk
Adds milk solids and fat that give the candy a softer, creamier texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallising too coarsely.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until creamy. Beating after the syrup has cooled lets fine sugar crystals form, making the candy opaque and creamy rather than hard and glassy. Beating too early or too long can make it set before it can be shaped.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against evaporated milk, 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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