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Molasses Sauce

A thick sauce made with milk, water, flour, butter, molasses, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Molasses Sauce

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk and water.

  2. Whisk in flour until smooth.

  3. Add butter and molasses, stirring well.

  4. Heat over medium until thickened, then flavor with nutmeg.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Molasses
Provides sweetness and deep flavor, along with color.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base that the sauce thickens into.

The step that matters

Whisking the flour in until smooth. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unevenly, and lumps are hard to remove later. Whisking it into the cold liquid first disperses the starch so it thickens evenly as the sauce heats.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, molasses. 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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