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Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a brittle confection made by boiling molasses until it hardens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and nuts work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 638 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Boil 1 quart of molasses slowly, stirring occasionally.

  2. To test doneness, drop a spoonful into cold water; if it breaks brittle, remove from heat.

  3. Grease flat pans with butter and pour the hot candy into them.

  4. Set aside to cool.

Stretch and finish

  1. When nearly cool, remove from pans and stretch until it becomes a clear light color.

  2. Flavor as desired or mix in nuts or popcorn.

  3. Add a small piece of alum for extra brittleness if desired.

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. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Molasses + vanillatop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together732 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + nutstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the main body, dark color and sweet, slightly bitter flavor of the candy.

The step that matters

Testing doneness in cold water. Molasses keeps thickening as it boils, and cooking too long makes the candy hard and bitter, while stopping too early leaves it sticky. The cold-water test shows when the sugar has reached the brittle stage.

Swap the vanilla

The recipe marks vanilla as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, nuts):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, nuts. 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.

More molasses candy recipes

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