Why it works: Molasses and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,123 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Molasses Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
Pour a quantity of Puerto Rico molasses into a large kettle.
Place the kettle over a slow fire and boil for 30 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent overflow. Be careful not to let the candy burn, especially towards the end of boiling.
Test the candy by dropping a little into cold water; it should harden and snap like a pipestem.
Add 1 teaspoon of carbonate of soda for every 2 quarts of molasses, stirring quickly to mix.
Pour the mixture onto greased platters to cool.
Pull and finish
Once cool enough to handle, rub your hands with butter and pull the candy back and forth to aerate it.
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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Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,123 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Porto rico molasses
- Provides the main sweetness and the dark, deep flavour of the candy.
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the hot molasses to release gas, lightening the texture as it sets.
The step that matters
Watch the candy near the end of boiling. Sugar syrups darken quickly as they approach the final stage, and near the end of boiling they can scorch and turn bitter. Stirring and watching the heat prevents burning.
“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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