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Dessert

Peanut Molasses Candy

A sweet candy made from molasses, sugar, butter, baking soda, and peanuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Peanut Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a large kettle, combine molasses, sugar, and butter.

  2. Boil rapidly, stirring constantly, until the mixture snaps sharply in ice water.

  3. Add baking soda and stir briefly.

  4. Mix in the shelled peanuts until well combined.

Set and store

  1. Pour the mixture into greased flat square pans.

  2. When partially cool, mark into blocks and cut through.

  3. Wrap in waxed paper and store in a dry place.

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 + peanuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,754 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + peanuttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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 bulk of the candy and its dark, rich flavor and chewy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture reach a firm, brittle set when boiled.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot syrup to release gas, making the candy light and porous rather than dense.
Shelled peanuts
Add crunch and nutty flavor that contrast with the chewy candy base.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly until the mixture snaps in ice water. Boiling to the hard-crack stage drives off water and concentrates the sugars so the candy sets firm. Undercooking leaves it sticky; overcooking makes it bitter and hard to cut.

Swap the peanut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, 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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