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Points on Taffy Making

A guide to making sugar or molasses taffy, including optional baking soda and greasing instructions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Points on Taffy Making

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine sugar, molasses, and butter in a kettle.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes, stirring often to prevent burning.

  3. If making sugar taffy, dissolve sugar in water and vinegar on low heat.

Cook the taffy

  1. Let it stew without stirring until done.

  2. For both types, add baking soda mixed with a cup of syrup 10 minutes before finishing.

  3. Stir vigorously to prevent overflow.

Pour, cool and pull

  1. Pour the hot candy into greased pans.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. When pulling taffy, wash hands in cold water instead of oiling them.

  4. Sprinkle a little milk if it hardens too quickly.

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).

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

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the crystalline structure that sets the taffy's chew.
Molasses
Adds flavor, color and moisture, and keeps the candy soft and chewy.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the candy's texture and gives it a richer flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the syrup to lighten the candy and make it easier to pull.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps stop sugar from crystallising in sugar taffy.

The step that matters

Stirring and stewing without stirring. Stirring vigorously to prevent overflow is needed as the syrup foams, while stewing without stirring lets sugar form a smooth texture. Stirring during the stew can trigger crystallisation, leaving the taffy grainy.

“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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