Molasses is an additive with 26 known flavor compounds. The most distinctive molecule is chlorogenic acid. It pairs most strongly with raisin, sharing 15 flavor compounds. Molasses appears in 15,769 recipes, most commonly in creole cuisine.
Compounds ranked by rarity — the higher the score, the more distinctive to this ingredient.
Of the ~226 molecules that drive perceived food aroma (Dunkel et al. 2014), Molasses's inventory contains 7. Most of the other 19 compounds are below detection threshold.
Generalist = appears in >25% of foods (Maillard / fermentation products). Individualist = appears in <5% of foods (carries signature notes). Threshold values are in clean water — the actual perception threshold in a food matrix can differ substantially.
How Molasses's 26 known compounds break down by aroma category. Percentages are of compounds with a known label.
6 of 26 are distinctive to molasses — they appear in under 10% of foods. The remainder are the background most foods share.
Ordered by measured impact in molasses — concentration against odour threshold where both are published, then by how distinctive the molecule is across the graph. Molecules measured here but not established as odorants sit below those that are.
Ranked by how often cooks actually use them together, across 453,403 recipes — the familiar answer first. Each pairing still carries its molecular score and shared-compound count; only the ORDER differs. Counts cover every characterised molecule the two ingredients have in common, not only the aroma-active ones, so they can exceed an ingredient’s aroma-compound count. For the chemistry-first view — where the surprising pairings live — see the molecular network below, the side-by-side comparison, or the Pairing Tool.
Molasses and its 10 closest compound-sharing relatives. Spoke thickness = shared compounds; circle size = that ingredient's own compound count. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, click to open.
Compare Molasses side-by-side
Drawn from PubMed + Europe PMC + food-science journals. Click any title to read the full abstract on the original source.
The effects of different roasting conditions (180 °C/70 min (T180), 210 °C/50 min (T210), and 240 °C/30 min (T240) on the qualities of orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) were explo... Read abstract →
This study investigated the impact of 3-methylbutanal (0, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 μg/kg) on aroma and neural responses in fermented sausages. Among 33 volatiles identified, 3-me... Read abstract →
Processed brown sugar is produced by combining non-centrifugal cane sugar (NCS), raw sugar, and molasses. The present study aimed to examine the effects of NCS and raw sugar blendi... Read abstract →
To increase the flavour complexity and overall quality of pure raspberry fruit wine, a novel composite fruit wine was developed using <i>Cyperus esculentus</i> meal saccharificatio... Read abstract →
This study evaluated the effect of dietary supplementation with different levels of spray-dried phenolic compounds, extracted from olive mill wastewater, on the volatile compound p... Read abstract →
