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Dessert

Butter Scotch

A brittle candy made with sugar, molasses, water, butter, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 ↓

Butter Scotch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, molasses, water, butter, and baking soda.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches a brittle stage.

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. Sugar + molassestop 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. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

White sugar
Provides the main sweetness and sets firm and brittle as the syrup cooks down.
Molasses
Adds depth of flavour and colour, and helps give the candy its butterscotch character.
Butter
Adds richness and a softer, smoother bite to the candy.
Baking soda
Lightens the candy's texture by creating small gas bubbles as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boiling to the brittle stage. Sugar syrup hardens as its water boils off. Stopping too early leaves a sticky candy, while cooking too long can scorch the sugar and taste bitter.

“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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