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 ↓
Candied Mint
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil water and sugar with a bit of cream of tartar until the mixture is almost discolored and begins to sugar the sides of the kettle.
Scrape all sugar off the edge of the kettle.
Place the kettle in a pan filled with cold water.
Coat the mint
Wash the mint leaves and dip each one into the syrup, then lay them flat on sheets of oiled paper.
To crystallize nuts, dip them in the remaining syrup.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that cools into a glossy, brittle coating on the mint.
- Cream of tartar
- Its acidity helps keep the syrup smooth and stops sugar from crystallizing unevenly.
The step that matters
Boiling the syrup to the right point. Sugar syrup must be cooked far enough to set firm when cool, but stopped before it darkens. Past that point, the sugar begins to caramelize and turns bitter, and the coating may not stay clear.
“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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