Skip to main content
Dessert

Cracker Jack

A sweet snack of popped corn, nuts, molasses, sugar, butter, vinegar, and baking soda, baked into a crisp sheet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cracker Jack

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Remove all hard grains from the popped corn and place it in a deep bowl.

  2. Add nut kernels to the bowl.

Make the coating

  1. In a saucepan, boil molasses, sugar, butter, and vinegar until it hardens in cold water.

  2. Remove from heat, add baking soda, and beat briskly.

  3. Pour the mixture over the corn and mix well.

Shape and cut

  1. Place the mixture on a floured board and roll it into a thin sheet.

  2. Once cool, cut into squares.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 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. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Popped corn
Forms the bulk of the snack, giving it a light, crisp body for the coating to cling to.
Molasses
Provides sweetness and flavor, and its sugars harden into a brittle coating as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the coating and helps it set firm and crisp when boiled to the hard-crack stage.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot syrup to create gas bubbles, lightening the coating and making it more tender.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing, keeping the coating smooth.

The step that matters

Boiling the molasses mixture to the hard stage. The syrup must reach the hard-crack stage so it sets brittle when cool. Undercooked syrup stays sticky, while overcooked syrup can taste bitter or scorch. Adding baking soda off the heat keeps the foam from collapsing.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipes