Name: Honey Deops
Ingredients: refined sugar; saffron; essence of honey; tartaric acid

Why it works: Saffron and honey work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 75 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Honey Deops

Ingredients

refined sugar
saffron
essence of honey
tartaric acid

Directions

Boil refined sugar with a little saffron to tint it light yellow.
Flavor the mixture with essence of honey and tartaric acid.
Pass the mixture through the round acid drop machine.
Cover the pan for about 10 minutes when the sugar begins to boil to keep the sides clean.
Once cooled, sift the drops and bottle them immediately.

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.

Saffron + honeytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,932 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + saffrontop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together650 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).