Home › Desserts › Peppermint Creams
Peppermint Creams
Two cups of granulated sugar, two-thirds cup of boiling water, one teaspoon of Larkin Peppermint, one-eighth teaspoon of cream of tartar. Prepare the same as Wintergreen Creams.
A plain fondant, flavoured and dropped into patties. The recipe is a variation, so the technique lives in the Wintergreen Creams entry; what follows fills that gap and updates the flavouring.
- Larkin PeppermintLarkin sold its own line of flavourings by mail order, and the brand name here stands for a peppermint flavouring, most likely an extract. Modern extracts are strong: start with half a teaspoon and taste, and if using oil of peppermint rather than extract, a couple of drops is roughly the equivalent.
- The missing methodThe technique is the standard fondant procedure: dissolve the sugar in the water over low heat, cover briefly so the steam washes crystals from the pan sides, then boil without stirring to the soft-ball stage, about 238F on a modern thermometer.
- Cool before beatingThis is the hinge. Pour the syrup onto a marble slab or platter and leave it undisturbed until it is barely warm to the touch, around 110F, before working it with a spatula or wooden spoon. Beating it hot produces coarse, gritty sugar crystals instead of a smooth cream.
- Cream of tartarThe eighth teaspoon is not for flavour or leavening. The acid inverts a little of the sucrose during boiling, which interferes with crystal growth and keeps the finished fondant soft and fine-grained. Do not increase it, or the candy may stay slack and never firm up properly.
- Flavouring goes in lateAdd the peppermint after the syrup has cooled, not during boiling. Volatile flavour oils drive off with the steam at 238F.
- Shaping and yieldOnce the mass turns opaque and stiff, knead it smooth, then drop teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper and let them stand a few hours to firm and dry. Two cups of sugar gives roughly 30 to 36 small patties.
- RipeningFondant improves if the kneaded mass is wrapped in a damp cloth in a covered container for several hours before shaping; it becomes more pliable and less inclined to crack.
- WeatherSugar work of this kind fails on humid days. The patties stay tacky and never dry to a firm surface.
Peppermint creams belong to the era when boiled-sugar confectionery moved from the professional confectioner's shop into the home kitchen, a shift that followed cheap granulated sugar and printed instruction in the later nineteenth century. The recipe's reference to "Larkin Peppermint" places it in a particular commercial world: the Larkin Company of Buffalo, a soap manufacturer that expanded into groceries, extracts and household goods sold direct to customers, and that circulated cookery booklets in which its own products were named as ingredients. Such books were advertising as much as instruction, and the brand-name flavouring in an otherwise generic fondant is the tell. The dish itself is simply fondant, the base of most soft-centred candy, distinguished here only by flavour, with a cross-reference to Wintergreen Creams alongside it.