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Dessert

Grace's Molasses Caramels

Molasses caramels are sweet candies made by boiling butter, sugar, molasses, and water to a hard ball stage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 ↓

Grace's Molasses Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine butter, sugar, molasses, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches a hard ball stage, testing it in cold water.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into shallow pans.

  2. Once cooled, cut or break into pieces as 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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + molassestop 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

Butter
Adds fat that makes the caramel rich and tender.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it boils, the concentration that lets the candy set firm.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor and color, and moisture that keeps the caramel chewy.

The step that matters

Boiling to the hard ball stage. Boiling concentrates the sugar, so the cooled mixture sets firm. Stopping too early leaves the caramels soft and sticky, while boiling too long makes them brittle. Testing a spoonful in cold water shows when the syrup has reached the right point.

“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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