Skip to main content
Dessert

Molasses Sticks

Molasses sticks are a sweet candy made by boiling sugar, molasses, and flavorings into a syrup, then shaping into sticks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Molasses Sticks

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 10 pounds of sugar with enough water to dissolve it into a strong syrup, about 1 quart plus ½ cup, in a copper pan.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and heat the mixture, washing down the sides of the pan to prevent graining.

  3. Cook the syrup to 340°F (170°C).

  4. Stir in 1 pint of good molasses and allow it to boil.

Pull and shape

  1. Pour the mixture onto a greased slab.

  2. Fold in the edges of the mixture as it cools.

  3. Pour 1 teaspoon of lemon oil and 1 tablespoon of burnt sugar or yellow color over the batch.

  4. Fold the batch together.

  5. Pull the batch over a hook, twisting out the air.

  6. Shape the batch into a round lump.

Cut the sticks

  1. Spin the lump into strips about the thickness of your thumb.

  2. Mark the strips into sticks with a knife.

  3. Break the sticks off by pushing the strips over the end of the table.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Cream + molassestop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sugar
Forms the bulk of the candy and sets into a firm, brittle structure as it cools.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent sugar crystals from forming and graining.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, color, and a soft chewy flavor to the candy.

The step that matters

Washing down the sides of the pan. Sugar crystals clinging to the pan walls can seed the syrup and make it grainy. Brushing them back into the syrup keeps the candy smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipes