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Dessert

Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a sweet treat made by boiling molasses and sugar, adding butter, baking soda, and flavoring, then cooling and pulling.

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

Cook the candy

  1. Boil the molasses and sugar together.

  2. Add the butter and the baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  3. Flavor to taste.

Set and pull

  1. Pour into buttered dishes.

  2. Pull the candy when cool.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Molasses + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,253 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

Molasses
Gives the candy its dark color, deep flavor and chewy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the candy and helps it set firm as it cools.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lighten the candy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to create bubbles that lighten the texture.
Butter
Adds richness and softens the texture of the candy.

The step that matters

Pull the candy when cool. Pulling stretches the candy and traps air, turning it lighter and paler. If pulled while still hot, it is too soft to hold its shape and is hard to handle.

“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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