Why it works: Biscuit and orange work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 371 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Peppermint Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the eggs and Naples biscuit in a mortar until well combined.
Add a little orange or other flavoring and press the mixture through a sieve.
Garnish with biscuits around the drops.
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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Biscuit + orangetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together371 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Biscuit + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,874 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + biscuittop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,643 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, biscuit, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, biscuit, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More peppermint drops recipes
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