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Pulled Molasses Candy

A candy made by boiling molasses, sugar, vinegar, and butter until brittle, then lightened with baking soda and cooled.

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 ↓

Pulled Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine molasses, sugar, vinegar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until the mixture becomes brittle when dropped in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in baking soda to lighten the color and cool the mixture.

  5. Pour onto a buttered dish.

Finish

  1. Pull until it turns pale yellow.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 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
Provides the dark color, deep flavor, and sugary base of the candy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture set firm and brittle when cooked.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing and keeps the candy smooth.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to lighten the color and create a porous, airy texture.

The step that matters

Boil until brittle in cold water. Cooking to the correct stage controls the final hardness. Too little cooking leaves the candy sticky, while too much makes it bitter or hard to pull.

“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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