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Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a brittle confection made by boiling molasses and optionally adding flavoring, nuts, popcorn, or alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and nuts are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Boil the molasses slowly in a pot, stirring occasionally.

  2. Drop a spoonful into cold water to test if the molasses is done.

  3. If it breaks brittle, remove the pot from heat.

  4. If desired, flavor the candy or mix in nuts or popcorn while boiling.

  5. Add a small piece of alum to make it more brittle, if desired.

Pour and shape

  1. Grease flat pans with butter and pour the hot candy into them.

  2. Set aside to cool.

  3. When nearly cool, remove the candy from the pans.

  4. Stretch the candy until it becomes a clear light color.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

Molasses
Forms the body of the candy and gives it its dark, rich flavor as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Testing with cold water. Molasses must reach the right stage before removing it from heat. A spoonful dropped into cold water shows whether it has cooked enough to set brittle, and removing it too early leaves the candy soft and sticky.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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