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Dessert

Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a sweet made by boiling molasses with sugar and vinegar, then adding 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

Make the candy

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar.

  2. Mix the sugar-vinegar mixture with the molasses and boil, stirring frequently, until it hardens when dropped into cold water.

  3. Stir in the butter and baking soda (dissolved in hot water).

Finish and shape

  1. Flavor to your taste, give one hard final stir, and pour into buttered dishes.

  2. As it cools, cut into squares for taffy, or while soft enough to handle, pull into white sticks using only the buttered tips of your fingers.

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. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + walnuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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 deep flavor of the candy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once boiled, helps the candy set firm when cooled.
Vinegar
Acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing into grainy candy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to add bubbles, lightening the candy's texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture and easier handling.

The step that matters

Boiling to the hard-crack stage. Boil until the candy hardens when dropped into cold water. Stopping early leaves it sticky, while boiling too long makes it brittle. Stirring frequently helps prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, vinegar, sugar, 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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