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Dessert

Molasses Candy

A hard candy made from molasses, sugar, butter, and optional nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Combine molasses, sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until the mixture hardens when tested in cold water.

  3. If desired, add chopped nuts just before removing from the stove.

Shape and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered pans.

  2. Once cool enough to handle, pull the candy until it becomes light colored.

  3. Cut into sticks.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

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

  5. Molasses + nutstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the dark color, deep flavor, and much of the sweetness in the candy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks, helps the candy set firm when cooled.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and a softer, less brittle texture.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the candy.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture hardens in cold water. Cooking to the right point controls the candy's firmness. Too little cooking leaves it soft and sticky, while too much makes it hard and brittle. The cold water test shows when the sugar concentration is right.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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