Skip to main content
Dessert

Molasses Sauce

A sweet and tangy sauce made from molasses, water, butter, spices, vinegar, and optional lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Molasses Sauce

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine molasses, water, butter, cinnamon or nutmeg, salt, and vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Use lemon juice instead of vinegar if desired.

  4. Serve over apple or rice puddings.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Cinnamon + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the main sweetness and dark, rich flavor of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet molasses and balances its flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel and richer finish.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. Molasses is thick and can scorch on the bottom of the pan if heated too hard. Keeping the heat controlled while the mixture simmers helps it thicken evenly and develop a deeper flavor without burning.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, cinnamon, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, cinnamon, vinegar. 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.

More molasses sauce recipes

Brown Sugar 3 See all 39 →

You might also like

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