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Peppermint Creams

A small peppermint‑flavored confection made by dropping a stiff egg white mixture onto a tin and flattening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Peppermint Creams

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Break the egg white in a bowl and add cold water.

  2. Stir in confectioner's sugar until the mixture is stiff.

  3. Add three drops of oil of peppermint to flavor.

Shape the creams

  1. Lightly grease a large baking tin.

  2. Drop the mixture onto the tin using a teaspoon, spacing them apart.

  3. Wet the back of a teaspoon with cold water or alcohol.

  4. Press each cream flat, repeating the wetting of the spoon each time.

  5. Optionally, color the creams with fruit coloring or cochineal.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + pepperminttop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + pepperminttop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together850 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Whips the sugar mixture into a stiff, sturdy base that holds its shape.
Confectioner's sugar
Stiffens the mixture and provides the sweetness of the creams.
Oil of peppermint
Provides the peppermint aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Stiffening the mixture with confectioner's sugar. Sugar must be added gradually until the mixture is stiff enough to hold its shape when dropped. Too little sugar leaves the creams runny and spreading, while the egg white needs to stay light and not be overworked.

Swap the peppermint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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