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Molasses Candy

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the candy

  1. Boil molasses, sugar, and vinegar until it hardens when dropped in cold water.

  2. Add butter and baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  3. Flavor to taste.

Shape

  1. Pour into buttered dishes and pull when cold.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the main flavor, dark color, and sweetness, along with moisture that gives the candy its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and forms the crystalline structure that sets the candy as it cools.
Vinegar
Acidity partly breaks down sugar, helping the candy stay smooth and keeping it from becoming grainy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release gas, lightening the texture and making the candy more tender and porous.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture slightly and gives a smoother, richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil until it hardens in cold water. The final texture depends on how far the sugar concentration rises during boiling. Stopping too early leaves the candy sticky and soft, while boiling too long makes it brittle and can scorch the molasses, so the cold-water test is the cook's guide.

“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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