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Dessert

Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a brittle confection made from molasses, sugar, vinegar, butter, and optionally nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

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

  2. Boil without stirring until it becomes brittle in cold water.

  3. For added flavor, dissolve baking soda in boiling water and stir in just before removing from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour out to cool and flavor while pulling.

  2. Add nut meats if desired.

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 + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  2. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sorghum + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sorghum + vinegartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Sorghum molasses or syrup
Provides the dark color, deep flavor, and chewy body of the candy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps set the candy's structure as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that keeps the sugar from crystallizing too readily.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture and mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to create gas bubbles that lighten the candy's texture.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until brittle in cold water. Stirring can cause sugar crystals to form, making the candy grainy. The cold-water test shows when the sugar has reached the hard-crack stage, so the candy sets brittle rather than sticky.

“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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