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 Cocoanut Bar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare and slice the coconuts with a sharp knife.
In a saucepan over low heat, combine the molasses and butter.
Bring to a boil, then add the sliced coconut, stirring constantly.
Cook and set
Cook until it reaches soft crack stage in winter or hard crack stage in summer.
Pour the mixture into a greased pan, spread it thin with a knife, and cut into bars.
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
- Coconut (in the method)
- Provides the bulk and chewy texture of the bars.
- Molasses
- Sweetens the bars and gives them their dark color and flavor, and helps them set firm as they cool.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture in the cooked mixture.
The step that matters
Cooking to the crack stage. Sugar syrups set according to their final temperature, so the cook must stop at the soft crack stage in winter or hard crack stage in summer. Humidity affects how much water the syrup holds, so the right stage shifts with the weather. Going too far makes the bars brittle, while stopping too early leaves them sticky and soft.
“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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