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Dessert

Molasses Candy

A hard candy made from molasses, sugar, vinegar, butter, and a pinch of baking soda or cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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

Cook the candy

  1. Combine molasses, sugar, vinegar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until it hardens when dropped in cold water.

  3. Stir in a pinch of baking soda or cream of tartar.

Pour and pull

  1. Pour the mixture onto buttered tins.

  2. Once cool, grease your hands and begin to pull the candy.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 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 + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the dark color, deep flavor, and much of the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves to form the candy's sugar structure as it boils.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing into a grainy texture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the candy and gives it a smoother bite.

The step that matters

Boiling until it hardens in cold water. The final sugar concentration set by boiling determines the texture. Stopping too early leaves the candy sticky, while boiling too long makes it brittle and hard to pull.

“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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