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Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a hard sweet made by boiling molasses, butter, sugar, and vinegar, then cooling and cutting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine molasses, butter, sugar, and vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until it hardens when dropped into cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in a little baking soda.

Set and cut

  1. Pour onto a greased surface and let cool before cutting into pieces.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Molasses + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,253 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

Molasses
Provides the dark color, deep flavor, and much of the sweetness in the candy.
Sugar
Forms the sweet base and helps the mixture harden as it cooks to a firm texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot acidic syrup to release gas, making the candy light and brittle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar crystallizing and works with the baking soda.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda off the heat. Baking soda reacts vigorously with the acid in the hot syrup, foaming up quickly. Adding it off the heat controls the reaction and keeps the candy airy rather than boiling over.

“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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