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Dessert

Popcorn Bricks

Popcorn bricks are popcorn coated in a brown sugar and molasses syrup, pressed into tins and cut into pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 ↓

Popcorn Bricks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the corn berries as for popcorn balls.

  2. In a pot, boil 8 lbs of brown sugar and 2 lbs of molasses until combined.

Shape

  1. Pour the syrup over the corn and mix thoroughly.

  2. Press the mixture into oiled tins tightly.

Finish

  1. Allow to cool, then cut into pieces with a sharp knife.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 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

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and, once cooled, the hardened syrup that holds the bricks together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor and a softer, chewier bite to the syrup.
Corn berries
Forms the bulk of the bricks, held together by the syrup coating.

The step that matters

Press the mixture into the tins tightly. Firm packing removes air gaps, so the syrup-coated corn sets into one dense mass. Loose packing leaves weak spots that crumble when the bricks are 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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