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Sauce

Molasses Sauce

A sweet sauce made from butter, flour, molasses, and water, flavored with lemon juice, vinegar, and nutmeg.

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

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Add the molasses and hot water, stirring until smooth.

  4. Cook slowly for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  5. Flavor with lemon juice, vinegar, and nutmeg to taste.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
Molasses
Provides the main sweetness and deep flavor.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Flour needs gentle heat and steady stirring to thicken smoothly without lumps or scorching on the pan bottom. Molasses can burn easily, so keeping the heat low protects the flavor.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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