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Sauce

Molasses Sauce

A simple sauce made by boiling molasses and butter, then adding lemon juice or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Molasses Sauce

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the molasses and butter together for 5 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice or vinegar.

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

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

  2. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + lemontop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,377 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

Molasses
Provides the main sweetness, dark colour and a thick, rich body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, glossier texture and a rounder, richer mouthfeel.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes. As water evaporates, the sugars in the molasses become more concentrated, so the sauce thickens. Boiling too long makes it very thick once it cools, while stopping too early leaves it thin.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

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