Why it works: Sugar and peppermint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,082 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Peppermint Rock
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sugar
Boil the sugar in a saucepan until it reaches the hard crack stage.
Allow the sugar to cool until it is safe to handle.
Pull and flavour
Pull the sugar until it turns white and glossy.
Add peppermint oil to taste and mix well.
Shape and cut
Roll the mixture into large sticks about 1 inch thick.
Chop the sticks into smaller pieces for sale.
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 + pepperminttop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 hard, glassy candy structure as it is boiled to the hard crack stage.
- Peppermint oil
- Adds the characteristic mint aroma and flavour to the candy.
The step that matters
Pulling the sugar until white and glossy. Pulling incorporates air and makes the sugar crystallise into an opaque, white, and chewy texture. Pulling too early, while the sugar is still too hot or too soft, can make it sticky or misshapen, so wait until it is cool enough to handle but still workable.
“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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