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To Make Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a sweet made by boiling molasses and brown sugar until brittle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar 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 ↓

To Make Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a saucepan with butter.

  2. Add molasses and brown sugar to the saucepan.

Cook

  1. Boil for 30 minutes, stirring continuously.

  2. When the mixture becomes brittle, it is done.

  3. If desired, add nuts just before removing from heat.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered tin pans and let cool.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Molasses + nutstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 deep flavor, and its sugars harden into a firm candy as water boils off.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like flavor, and helps the candy set firm as the mixture thickens.

The step that matters

Testing for brittleness. As the mixture boils, water evaporates and the sugar becomes more concentrated, so the candy hardens. Judging doneness by brittleness rather than time alone prevents a sticky, underset candy or one that scorches.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

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