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Sauce

Molasses Sauce

A sauce made by mixing butter, flour, and spices, then adding molasses and boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Molasses Sauce

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter, flour, and your choice of spice.

  2. Pour the hot molasses over the mixture.

  3. Return the mixture to the heat and boil for three minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Molasses
Provides the main sweetness, dark color, and rich flavor, and forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded mouthfeel and carries the spice flavor.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when the mixture is heated.
Nutmeg, cinnamon, or ginger
Adds warm aromatic flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the heat and boil for three minutes. Flour only thickens once its starch has heated enough to swell, so the sauce needs a full boil. Molasses is sugar-rich and scorches easily, so keep the heat controlled and stir while it cooks.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, 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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