Why it works: Molasses and corn work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 644 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Pop-corn Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Boil molasses to the soft ball stage.
Place the perfect kernels of popped corn in a large tin pan.
Pour a little of the boiled molasses over the corn.
Mix thoroughly with forks or spoons, adding more molasses as needed.
Fill a pint measure tightly with the mixture to form equal-sized balls.
Empty the measure and squeeze the corn into firm balls with your hands.
Set aside to harden.
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.
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Molasses + corntop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together644 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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