Why it works: Molasses and peanut work together. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 115 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
Peanut Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine molasses, glucose, and water in a large pot.
Boil until the mixture reaches the crack stage.
Remove the thin reddish skin from the peanuts.
Arrange the peanuts in a tray to a depth of about 1 inch.
Make and cut the candy
Pour the hot candy over the peanuts, stirring until each is coated.
Use enough candy to bind the peanuts into a large cake.
When nearly cool, cut into squares or bars with a sharp knife.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Molasses + peanuttop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together115 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, rich flavor, and sweetness of the candy.
- Glucose
- Adds sweetness and helps keep the candy smooth rather than grainy.
- Peanuts
- Form the body of the candy, giving crunch and nutty flavor.
The step that matters
Boiling to the crack stage. Sugar syrup must reach the crack stage so that, once cooled, the candy sets firm and brittle. Undercooking leaves it sticky and soft; overcooking makes it bitter and hard to cut.
“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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