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Dessert

Molasses Taffy

Molasses taffy is a chewy candy made from brown sugar, molasses, water, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Molasses Taffy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the candy

  1. Boil the brown sugar, molasses, and water until a drop in cold water forms a soft ball you can pick up with your fingers.

  2. Add the butter and continue cooking until the candy is brittle in cold water.

  3. Stir in the vanilla.

  4. Do not stir the mixture while boiling, or it will crystallize.

  5. Optionally, add a bit of cream of tartar at the beginning for a lighter texture.

Finish and pull

  1. Pour the mixture onto buttered pans and pull it.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the main sweetness and the caramel-like flavor of the taffy.
Molasses
Adds deeper flavor, color, and chewiness to the candy.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a smoother bite.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that helps prevent crystallization, for a lighter texture.

The step that matters

Avoid stirring while the sugar boils. Stirring a boiling sugar syrup can encourage sugar crystals to form, which makes the taffy grainy instead of smooth.

“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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