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Molasses Sauce

A sweet and spiced sauce made from molasses, brown sugar, butter, and spices, boiled until clear.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Molasses Sauce

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine molasses, brown sugar, and butter.

  2. Dissolve flour in a small amount of water and add to the mixture.

  3. Stir in lemon juice, cinnamon stick, cloves, grated nutmeg, and salt.

  4. Pour in boiling water and bring to a boil.

  5. Boil until the sauce is clear, stirring frequently.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 and rich, sweet, distinctive flavor of the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and body, dissolving into the liquid to thicken the sauce slightly.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the molasses and sugar.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Dissolve the flour fully before adding it. Flour clumps if added dry or in too little liquid. Mixing it into a small amount of water first creates a smooth slurry that thickens the sauce evenly rather than leaving lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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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