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Old-fashioned Molasses Candy

A brittle candy made from molasses, brown sugar, butter or lard, baking soda, and nuts.

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 ↓

Old-fashioned Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture is crisp and brittle when tested in a cup of water.

  3. Add baking soda and nuts, stirring well.

  4. Pour the mixture onto buttered pans and let it cool.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Molasses + nutstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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 sweetness that define the candy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture harden into a brittle candy as it cooks.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that gives the candy a tender bite and smooths the texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot syrup to release gas, making the candy light and brittle.

The step that matters

Cooking until brittle. The mixture must reach the crisp, brittle stage when tested in cold water. Stopping early leaves it sticky, while cooking too long can scorch the sugars and taste bitter. Low heat and frequent stirring help prevent burning.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter. 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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