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Dessert

Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a sweet made by boiling molasses, sugar, water, cream of tartar, and butter until it cracks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the sugar and water in a large pot.

  2. Once boiling, add the cream of tartar and butter.

  3. Continue boiling until the mixture cracks when dropped in cold water.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly before pulling.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Molasses + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 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

White sugar
Provides the sweetness and, as it cooks, the firm structure of the candy.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor, dark color and a chewy, moist texture.
Cream of tartar
Its acidity helps prevent the sugar from crystallizing into grainy candy.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a smoother bite.

The step that matters

Boiling until the mixture cracks in cold water. The sugar concentration rises as water boils off. Stopping too early leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it brittle or scorched.

“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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