Skip to main content
Dessert

Molasses Pie

A sweet pie made with sugar, molasses, cream, eggs, butter, and flour baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Molasses Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix together sugar, molasses, cream, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add beaten eggs and flour, stirring until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour mixture into pie crusts and bake for 30-35 minutes or until set.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Set the filling into a firm custard as they bake and add richness.
Molasses
Provides the dark color and deep, slightly bitter sweetness of the pie.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the filling slightly and helps it hold together when cut.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the set custard.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the filling.

The step that matters

Pour mixture into pie crusts and bake for 30-35 minutes or until set.. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking can make it cracked, grainy, or rubbery. Checking for a set center, which should jiggle only slightly, helps achieve a smooth custard.

“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.

More molasses pie recipes

Lemon 3 See all 43 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes