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Dessert

Butter Scotch

A caramel-like candy made with coffee sugar, water, molasses, and butter.

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 ↓

Butter Scotch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine coffee sugar, water, and molasses in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches a hair stage, without stirring.

  3. Add butter when the candy is nearly done.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Coffee + molassestop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together640 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

Coffee sugar
Provides the sweetness and the sugar that sets into the brittle candy structure.
Molasses
Adds depth of flavour and colour, and helps keep the candy from crystallising too quickly.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the finished candy.

The step that matters

Boiling to the hair stage without stirring. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set correctly, so the candy neither stays sticky nor turns hard and grainy. Stirring can trigger crystallisation, which makes the texture gritty, so the mixture is left undisturbed while it boils.

“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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