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Dessert

Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a sweet made from sugar, molasses, butter, water, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 1 cup of sugar and 4 tablespoons of water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Finish the candy

  1. Add 1 cup of molasses, an egg-sized piece of butter, and a pinch of cream of tartar.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool before working with it.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and the crystalline base that sets the candy's structure.
Molasses
Adds deep flavour, moisture, and dark colour to the candy.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a richer mouthfeel.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps prevent the sugar from forming large crystals.

The step that matters

Dissolve the sugar completely before adding the other ingredients. Undissolved sugar crystals can act as seeds for further crystallisation, which makes the candy grainy instead of smooth. Cream of tartar helps limit this, but fully dissolving the sugar first is what prevents it.

“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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