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Molasses-candy

Molasses candy is a hard candy made from sugar, vinegar, molasses, butter, baking soda, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 ↓

Molasses-candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the syrup

  1. Dissolve sugar in vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in molasses and boil until it hardens when dropped into cold water.

Add the butter and soda

  1. Stir in butter and baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  2. Give a final hard stir and pour into buttered dishes.

Pull and finish

  1. Pull the candy until white using only the tips of your fingers.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,253 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

Sugar
Provides most of the sweetness and, as it concentrates, the firm set of the candy.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor, dark color and sweetness, and gives the candy its chewy body.
Vinegar
Its acid partly breaks down sugar, which keeps the candy smoother and less grainy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release gas, making the candy lighter and more porous, and paler in color.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and reduces stickiness.

The step that matters

Boiling until it hardens in cold water. Sugar concentration sets the final texture. Boiling too briefly leaves the candy soft and sticky, while boiling too long makes it brittle. The cold-water test shows when the syrup has reached the right concentration.

“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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