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Sauce

Molasses Sauce

A thickened molasses sauce flavored with vinegar or cider and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Molasses Sauce

Why it works: Butter and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,513 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the molasses until it thickens slightly.

  2. Add the vinegar or cider and bring to a boil again.

  3. Stir in the butter and serve warm.

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. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Molasses + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

Molasses
Provides the main sweetness and dark, robust flavor of the sauce.
Vinegar or cider
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and balances the molasses.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the molasses until it thickens slightly. Molasses is very thick and sugary, so heating it drives off water and concentrates it. Boiling too little leaves the sauce thin, while boiling too long can make it stiff and sticky once it cools.

“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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