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Dessert

Butter Scotch

A hard candy made from sugar, glucose, molasses, butter, ginger, and water, cooked to a brittle consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Butter Scotch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine sugar, glucose, and water. Cook over high heat until it reaches 245°F (118°C) or forms a hard ball in water.

  2. Add molasses, butter, and ginger. Stir constantly after adding these ingredients.

  3. Continue cooking until the mixture reaches 260°F (127°C) or is almost brittle in water.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto a greased marble slab, spreading it thin.

  2. Mark and cut 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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ginger + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Sugar
Forms the main sweet body of the candy as it cooks down into a hard, brittle mass.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the candy smooth and glassy rather than grainy.
Dark molasses
Adds deep color, a toffee-like flavor, and some extra sweetness and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and rounds out the flavor of the candy.

The step that matters

Stirring after adding molasses, butter, and ginger. Constant stirring keeps the fats and sugars evenly mixed and prevents scorching on the hot pot bottom, which would make the candy taste bitter and burnt.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, 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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