Why it works: Molasses and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 36% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,377 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Old-fashioned Molasses Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
In a large kettle, boil 1 quart of New Orleans molasses over a clear fire until it reaches either the soft or hard crack stage.
Dissolve ½ teaspoon of pure baking soda in a little hot water and stir it into the boiling molasses as you pour it out to cool.
Add lemon or vanilla for flavoring if desired.
Pull and finish
Once cool enough to handle, pull the candy until it begins to stiffen.
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 + lemontop 36% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,377 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
- New orleans molasses
- Provides the bulk of the candy and its sweet, deep, caramelized flavour as it cooks.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the hot molasses to lighten its colour and make the candy porous and tender.
The step that matters
Stirring in the baking soda. Baking soda reacts vigorously with hot, acidic molasses and foams up. Adding it too cold or too slowly leaves dense, uneven candy, while adding it all at once can cause the mixture to boil 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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