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Candy Butter Scotch

A sweet candy made from molasses, sugar, butter, and almond extract, boiled until it snaps when chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Candy Butter Scotch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Combine molasses, sugar, butter, and almond extract in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until the mixture snaps when chilled in ice water, about 15 minutes.

Shape and wrap

  1. Pour into a buttered pan and mark in desired shapes when partly cooled.

  2. Once cold, cut into pieces and wrap each in wax paper.

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 + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Molasses + almondtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together402 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
Provides the dark color, deep flavor, and chewy body of the candy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the candy set firm as it cooks and cools.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture and softer bite.

The step that matters

Boiling until the mixture snaps in ice water. Cooking sugar syrup to the right stage controls hardness. Too little cooking leaves the candy sticky, while too much makes it brittle or scorched. Testing a small drop in ice water shows when the sugar concentration is right.

“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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