Honey’s yummy, but molasses’ rich, bittersweet essence has a darker, more potent allure. Although a far cry from molasses staples of baked beans and brown bread, today’s molasses-rich recipes rely on the same flavor- and moisture-enhancing qualities that have made the ingredient a mainstay for generations. Molasses puts the chew in cookies, the soul in shoofly pie and the fudgy moistness in gingerbread.
Here’s what you need to know about it.
Where to buy it
Supermarkets carry precious few molasses choices.
For best consistency in recipes, conventional brands are fine. But if you want to try some regional small-batch-produced molasses, contact Good Food Inc. in Honey Brook, Pa., goldenbarrel.com, 800-327-4406. Bottles of its Golden Barrel brand blackstrap and baking molasses are sold by the pint, quart and gallon, with prices ranging from $1.30 to $9.20.
The secret ingredient
Molasses is the secret flavoring in the following foodstuffs:
Cracker Jack, created in Chicago by German immigrant Frederick Rueckheim and his brother, Louis, and made famous at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.
Worcestershire sauce
A-1 Sauce
Shoofly pie
Boston baked beans
Rum
Molasses impostor?
In the South, sweet sorghum syrup is still referred to as molasses. It’s not.
Made from sorghum grass instead of sugar cane and processed differently, sweet sorghum syrup nonetheless does have a flavor that’s comparable to light molasses and can be used in recipes that call for molasses.
MORE INFO:
Rolling Meadows Sorghum Mill, Elkhart Lake, Wis., 920-876-2182
Sandhill Farm, Rutledge, Mo., productssandhillfarm.org, or visit localharvest.org to buy its products online.
