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Dessert

Butter Cups

A sweet confection of molasses, sugar, butter, water, and flavored fondant, rolled and baked into cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Butter Cups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fondant

  1. Prepare a stiff fondant flavored with lemon or vanilla.

  2. Mix in finely chopped nut meats.

  3. Shape the fondant into a long roll about ½ inch in diameter.

  4. Cover the roll and set aside.

Make the candy

  1. In a pint-size saucepan, combine molasses, sugar, butter, and boiling water.

  2. Stir the mixture.

  3. Boil without stirring until a moderately firm ball can be formed.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Pour onto a greased tin.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 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

Molasses
Gives the candy its dark color and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it dissolves and cooks, builds the candy's firm structure.
Fondant
Forms the soft, flavored centre that the candy coating surrounds.
Finely chopped nut meats
Adds crunch and texture to the fondant centre.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until a moderately firm ball can be formed. Stirring during boiling can trigger sugar crystallisation, making the candy grainy. Cooking to the right stage determines firmness: too short a boil leaves it soft, too long makes it hard.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter, cream, meat):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, cream, meat. 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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