Name: Nut Molasses Candy
Ingredients: molasses; any kind of nuts (e.g., peanuts, walnuts, almonds); butter (for greasing)

Why it works: Walnut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Nut Molasses Candy

Ingredients

molasses
any kind of nuts (e.g., peanuts, walnuts, almonds)
butter (for greasing)

Directions

Heat molasses in a saucepan until it thickens.
Add your choice of nuts to the thickened syrup.
Pour the mixture onto buttered tins.
Mark the candy into squares before it cools completely.

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.

Walnut + almondtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together993 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Peanut + almondtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together305 recipes

Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).
Nuts + peanuttop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together81 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Peanut + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together241 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Nuts + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together394 recipes

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

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

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, peanut, walnut, almond, butter):

Pistachiofits better
Flaxseedfits better
Sesamefits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, peanut, walnut, almond, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.