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Dessert

Molasses Pie

A sweet pie made with molasses, sugar, eggs, butter, flour, and lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Molasses Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, molasses, sugar, butter, and flour until well combined.

  3. Flavor the mixture with lemon.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the filling into pie crusts to make four pies.

  2. Bake until set, then let cool.

  3. Spread marmalade or preserves over each pie.

  4. Prepare a meringue and spread it over the top of each pie.

  5. Brown the meringue lightly in the oven.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set firm when baked.
Molasses
Provides the dark color and rich, strong sweetness of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the filling as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Flour
Thickens the filling and gives it body so it holds its shape.

The step that matters

Bake until set, then let cool. Eggs thicken as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking can make it dry or cracked. Cooling lets the filling finish setting firmly before slicing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, sugar, butter, flour. 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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