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Dessert

Molasses Chips for Coating

Molasses chips are a candy coating made from sugar, glucose, water, molasses, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 Chips for Coating

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine sugar, glucose, and water in a large pot.

  2. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it reaches 300°F (150°C).

  3. Add molasses and a little salt, then cook to 300°F (150°C) again.

  4. Pour the mixture onto a cool slab.

Pull and shape

  1. Once cool, pull the candy on a hook and form it into a flat piece on the table.

  2. Pull out the candy like chips and have a helper mark them.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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

Sugar
Provides the main sweet body and structure once the mixture cools and hardens.
Glucose
Inhibits crystallization, keeping the candy smooth and workable rather than grainy.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor and color, and contributes to the candy's chewy, pullable texture.

The step that matters

Cooking to 300°F (150°C) the second time. The candy must reach the same hard-crack temperature after the molasses is added. Too little heat leaves it soft and sticky, and too much makes it brittle and bitter.

“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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