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Dessert

Peppermint Lozenges

A peppermint-flavored confection made from powdered sugar, gum mucilage, peppermint oil, and blue food coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Lozenges

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Place the powdered sugar on a marble slab and make a round hole in the center.

  2. Pour in the strained gum mucilage and the oil of peppermint.

  3. Add a pinch of blue food coloring and mix to form a stiff paste.

Shape and cut

  1. Roll out a small quantity of the paste on another marble slab to the desired thickness.

  2. Lightly rub your hand over the sheet to smooth the surface.

  3. Use a hand brush to finish the surface and cut out with a round cutter.

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 + 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

Powdered loaf sugar
Forms the bulk of the paste and provides sweetness and structure as it sets.
Gum mucilage
Binds the powdered sugar into a workable, stiff paste that holds its cut shape.
Oil of peppermint
Supplies the strong peppermint aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Mixing to a stiff paste. Too much liquid makes the paste sticky and hard to roll, while too little leaves crumbly powder that won't hold a cut shape. The sugar must be fully worked in so the lozenges set firm and even.

“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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