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Dessert

Peppermint Drops

A peppermint-flavored sugar candy made by mixing powdered sugar, cream of tartar, and peppermint oil, then beating until white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Peppermint Drops

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Moisten the powdered sugar with boiling water.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and add cream of tartar and oil of peppermint.

  4. Beat briskly until the mixture is white.

  5. Drop onto paper before it sugars.

  6. If it begins to sugar, add a little water.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Peppermint + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together632 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. 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 sugar
Forms the sugar base that sets into the crisp, sweet drop.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps keep the sugar syrup smooth and less likely to turn grainy.

The step that matters

Drop onto paper before it sugars. As the boiled sugar cools and beats, it begins to crystallize, turning grainy and opaque. Dropping the mixture while it is still soft keeps the drops smooth. If it starts to sugar, a little water loosens it again.

Swap the peppermint

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Peppermintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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