Molasses Facts and Recipes

Molasses, called treacle in England, is a strong, fragrant, thick syrup made from processed sugar cane or sugar beet. It is a flavorful way to add liquid and sweetness to recipes. Its viscosity makes it suitable for chewy, dense foods like gingerbread and it adds textured sweetness to dishes like baked beans.

Molasses comes from the Latin word melaceres, which means "honey-like." It was developed after process of pressing sugar cane to produce sugar cane juice and then sugar was discovered in India around 500 BC. A century or so later, Christopher Columbus brought sugar cane to the West Indies, and 200 years later, cane was planted in New Orleans. With the cane, came the molasses.

The use of sugar beets to produce sugar first appeared in the mid-1700s in Germany, and by 1813, France was producing 35,000 tons of sugar from 334 sugar beet plantations. 

In 1733, the Molasses Act was created in the United States, imposing taxes on sugar and molasses from non-British entities. 

On January 15, 1919, the Great Boston Molasses Flood occurred when 12,000 tons of the thick syrup gushed from a fractured steel tank into Boston's inner harbor. As a result of the incident, 21 people died and over 150 people were injured.

Molasses is 65 percent as sweet as sugar and is created during the refining of sugar; the molasses syrup is what remains after sucrose has been crystallized from sugar cane juice. 

For a lighter, milder version of molasses, the syrup is removed after the first boiling of the sugar cane. This type of syrup has the highest sugar content and is most often called for in recipes.

For the darker version, the syrup is removed after the second boiling. This type of syrup has less sugar and tastes more bitter.

Blackstrap molasses, the darkest version, comes after the third boiling. This has the least sugar, but is a great source of calcium, iron, potassium and magnesium. It is offered as a health supplement due to these qualities.

When baking with molasses, the first step will be reducing the oven temperature by 25°F since baked goods with molasses darken quicker than those with sugar.

In your recipe, substitute one and a third cup of molasses for one cup of sugar and reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by five tablespoons. You remove the liquid since molasses is a wet ingredient while sugar is dry. Due to the acidity of the molasses, you should also add a half teaspoon of baking soda for every one cup of molasses you use. Make sure you do not replace more than half the sugar in the recipe with molasses as the end result may not taste as sweet.

If you substitute for honey, corn syrup or pure maple syrup, use a 1:1 ratio. Replace three quarter cups of brown sugar for one cup of molasses.

For baked beans specifically, adding molasses for flavoring at the beginning of the cooking process will cause the beans to cook more slowly than if added at the end. Adding the molasses at the beginning, however, will also infuse more flavor into the beans.

Don't worry about your beans becoming mushy. The high calcium content in molasses assures your baked beans will not turn to mush, but retain their shape instead.

According to WebMD, blackstrap molasses is a great source of calcium, iron, potassium and magnesium. It is offered as a health supplement due to these qualities.c

In two teaspoons of blackstrap molasses, you will find:

• 32 calories
  
• 8g carbohydrates
  
• 118mg calcium
  
• 2mg iron
  
• 341mg potassiumc