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 Stick
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batches
Cook sugar to hard crack stage.
Take ½ to ¾ pound of the batch and knead in enough cochineal paste to achieve a rich, bright red color.
Keep the red mixture warm until needed.
Flavor and pull
When cool enough, place the batch on a hook and add peppermint flavoring.
Pull the mixture vigorously until it is very white and stiff.
Flatten the mixture, turn it over, and roll it up tightly into a smooth melon shape.
Stripe and finish
Roll the red mixture into a long strip and divide it into six equal lengths.
Place one red strip lengthwise on the white batch and one on each side, about 1.5 inches apart.
Turn the batch over and place the remaining three red strips directly opposite the first three.
Spin and finish as you would for lemon stick candy.
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.
-
Sugar + pepperminttop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Forms the hard, glassy candy structure when cooked to hard crack stage.
- Cochineal paste
- Provides the bright red color of the striped sections.
- Peppermint flavoring
- Gives the candy its minty aroma and flavor.
The step that matters
Pulling the white batch. Pulling incorporates air and cools the sugar mass, turning it opaque white and stiff. If it is pulled while still too hot or too soft, it will not whiten properly and the stripes may not hold their shape.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.