Name: Artificial Honey
Ingredients: 5 pounds sugar; 2 pounds water; 1 pound bees' honey; 4 drops peppermint essence

Why it works: Honey and peppermint work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 345 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

Artificial Honey

Ingredients

5 pounds sugar
2 pounds water
1 pound bees' honey
4 drops peppermint essence

Directions

Make the syrup

Boil the sugar and water together.
Skim off any impurities when cooled.

Flavor and finish

Add the bees' honey and peppermint essence.
Use 1 pound more honey and 1 pound less water for a better flavor.

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.

Honey + pepperminttop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together345 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).
Sugar + honeytop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,932 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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

Sugar: Provides sweetness and the main body of the syrup.
Bees' honey: Adds sweetness and flavor, and its sugars help keep the syrup from crystallizing.
Peppermint essence: Adds a strong minty aroma to the syrup.