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Dessert

Peppermint Creams

A sweet confection made by mixing icing sugar, egg white, peppermint oil, and water, then shaping and drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg 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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, knead the icing sugar with the beaten egg white and peppermint oil.

  2. Gradually add the water while continuing to knead.

  3. Roll out the mixture to a thickness slightly thicker than a penny.

Shape and dry

  1. Cut into shapes using a small cutter.

  2. Place the cut pieces on a tray and let them dry for 24 hours.

Store

  1. Store in a tin box.

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 + eggtop 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

Icing sugar
Provides the sweet, bulk body that the creams are built from and sets firm as it dries.
Egg white
Binds the sugar into a pliable paste that holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Peppermint oil
Supplies the strong mint aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the water gradually. Icing sugar absorbs liquid unevenly, so adding water slowly while kneading lets the paste reach a workable consistency without becoming sticky or crumbly.

Swap the peppermint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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