Selecting the right molasses for baking

[Norcalbaker59]

Margot was kind enough to post a recipe for baked beans that sound absolutely delicious. I noticed the recipe calls for a specific type of molasses. It just reminded me of the importance of using the correct molasses in both baking and cooking because the wrong molasses will ruin your spice cake, gingerbread, and even your barbecue sauce .

Molasses is produced from boiling the sugarcane or sugarbeet and extracting the sugar from the syrup. Not all molasses is created equal. in fact some of the most commonly sold molasses, blackstrap molasses, shouldn't even be used in baking and cooking.

Types of molasses:

Light: Light molasses is produced from the first boiling, so it’s mild and sweet as it contains a lot of sugar. It’s used in baking and cooking. Grandma's Original Molasses and Brer Rabbit Mild Molasses are an example of a light molasses. I only use light molasses for baking and cooking.

Dark: produced in the second boiling. Its dark and sweet, but with a bitter edge. Grandma's Robust and Brer Rabbit Full Flavor Molasses are examples of dark molasses.

Blackstrap: produced from the third boiling, which extracts almost all of its sugar. Blackstrap is a very dark and bitter sugar sludge. Anyone who's ever lived in the south will tell you blackstrap molasses is not fit for consumption. DO NOT USE THIS MOLASSES! If you use blackstrap molasses in spice cake, or gingerbread, or even barbecue sauce, it will make it bitter.

In the South, blackstrap is used as an additive for stockyard feed because it’s just down right disgusting in taste. No one in the South eats blackstrap molasses--its that horrible!

Unsulfured vs sulfured molasses: Sulfur dioxide is a preservative. It is added to molasses to inhibit fermentation. Unsulfured molasses is sweeter in flavor since the addition of sulfur reduces the sweetness of molasses.

Substituting molasses for sugar in a recipe:

Substitution of molasses for sugar is not a 1:1 substitution. To substitute, use 1 1/3 cups molasses for 1 cup of sugar.

The reason you cannot substitute 1:1 is molasses contains less sugar than sugar. Molasses is a by-product of the sugar refining processing. With each boiling of the cane or beet syrup, sugar is extracted. So molasses contains less sugar than sugar.

Sugar plays an important role in baking. It provides moisture retention and it helps to inhibit gluten development since it competes with flour for the moisture in the batter or dough. So when substituting molasses for sugar in a recipe you need to maintain the appropriate ratio of sugar to flour.

Recipes using molasses will generally contain both sugar and molasses: molasses for its unique flavor, sugar for the sweetness.

 

[ChesterV]

I beg to differ.

Blackstrap IS used in foods (or used to be). It is used in foods that contain a high level of sugar. Using Blackstrap will give it that molasses twang, and at the same time, remove that tooth numbing sweetness of whatever it is you are making. Granted you DO NOT use much of it, but it IS used. You have to be an old fashioned country baker/cook to know how to use Blackstrap correctly. It is also used for food coloring, such as in licorice, or anything that has to be dark colored. A lot of old style candies used to be colored with Blackstrap to get them dark.....but like with everything else, over the years, switching to artificial chemicals was cheaper.

Using Blackstrap is the equivalent of using Vegamite. "A little dab will do ya".


Here in the South, light molasses is (or was when I was growing up) predominately used for candy making or making other syrups.

Dark was used for waffles, pancakes, breads, puddings, cakes, etc.....either pour on as a sauce or used as a sweetener or flavoring.


I prefer honey myself, or REAL maple syrup. I never had a taste for molasses, I always found it pretty "icky".

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I beg to differ.

Blackstrap IS used in foods (or used to be). It is used in foods that contain a high level of sugar. Using Blackstrap will give it that molasses twang, and at the same time, remove that tooth numbing sweetness of whatever it is you are making. Granted you DO NOT use much of it, but it IS used. You have to be an old fashioned country baker/cook to know how to use Blackstrap correctly. It is also used for food coloring, such as in licorice, or anything that has to be dark colored. A lot of old style candies used to be colored with Blackstrap to get them dark.....but like with everything else, over the years, switching to artificial chemicals was cheaper.

Using Blackstrap is the equivalent of using Vegamite. "A little dab will do ya".


Here in the South, light molasses is (or was when I was growing up) predominately used for candy making or making other syrups.

Dark was used for waffles, pancakes, breads, puddings, cakes, etc.....either pour on as a sauce or used as a sweetener or flavoring.


I prefer honey myself, or REAL maple syrup. I never had a taste for molasses, I always found it pretty "icky".

Oh I know blackstrap molasses is used in food. In the north definitely. But in the south its used as animal feed. My grandmother was a southerner from Arkansas. I've had homes Texas, Virginia, and Florida. No one in my family or circle of friends ever use blackstrap molasses for baking and cooking. It's so bitter. It's light molasses for us. The first time I ever tasted blackstrap I was probably in my late 30s. I was shocked at how sharp the flavor is--not sweet at all, just bitter. I was surprised that people would use it in baking.

I grew up eating honey, homemade jam, or molasses on everything from pancakes to biscuits. My grandmother being a country woman made just about every thing from scratch. Even honey came from home--she was beekeeper, so she jarred the honey with a chunk honeycomb. Nothing like chewing on a piece of honey filled honeycomb. My dad grew up tending the hives.

A few years ago a friend whose mother is from England introduced me to golden syrup. It's a cane sugar syrup. It's similar to dark corn syrup, but taste much better. So when I make toffee I now use golden syrup in place of corn syrup. I think it gives the toffee a smoother flavor.

The same friend said when he was a kid and his family moved from England to Australia for a few years. He started kindergarten there. He said they fed them Vegamite on bread for their lunch. Goes to show you there's a lot of things out there in the world that are definitely an acquired taste.

 

[ChesterV]

Oh I know blackstrap molasses is used in food. In the north definitely. But in the south its used as animal feed. My grandmother was a southerner from Arkansas. I've had homes Texas, Virginia, and Florida. No one in my family or circle of friends ever use blackstrap molasses for baking and cooking. It's so bitter. It's light molasses for us. The first time I ever tasted blackstrap I was probably in my late 30s. I was shocked at how sharp the flavor is--not sweet at all, just bitter. I was surprised that people would use it in baking.

I grew up eating honey, homemade jam, or molasses on everything from pancakes to biscuits. My grandmother being a country woman made just about every thing from scratch. Even honey came from home--she was beekeeper, so she jarred the honey with a chunk honeycomb. Nothing like chewing on a piece of honey filled honeycomb. My dad grew up tending the hives.

A few years ago a friend whose mother is from England introduced me to golden syrup. It's a cane sugar syrup. It's similar to dark corn syrup, but taste much better. So when I make toffee I now use golden syrup in place of corn syrup. I think it gives the toffee a smoother flavor.

The same friend said when he was a kid and his family moved from England to Australia for a few years. He started kindergarten there. He said they fed them Vegamite on bread for their lunch. Goes to show you there's a lot of things out there in the world that are definitely an acquired taste.

Yeah, I come from a farming family as well.

Although my family background was more of the poor side of the tracks. My granny and her sisters had to pull cotton in the summers in order to have food and clothes. My granny told me they didn't throw anything away, everything had a use or reuse. Nothing was ever wasted.

This is how Blackstrap came to be used as food additives. Not necessarily for the molasses effect itself, but because it was something that was thrown out by molasses producers. When you are hungry and have nothing, you take what you can get and make something out of it.

Blackstrap was pretty much used for flavoring things just so it had the effect of having molasses in it. And yes, it was mixed with feed (and still is), mainly to get the animals to eat the parts of the harvested plants that they normally would chew around or spit out. When you can't even feed yourself, you certainly don't have much to offer farm animals. The best way to get them to eat the discards was to mix it with something that would be sweet to them, as well as beneficial in the way of "beefing them up". Blackstrap does that.

Unfortunately in this "disposable" society, no one knows how to use "discards" anymore. Those few who do, were shown by those people who had to grow up during the depression, who literally had nothing to eat.....so they had to make do with everything they could get. Bones were boiled for soups, meat trimmings were used for home remedies and an assortment of byproducts for people and pets alike, "day old" anything was used for something, and byproducts of cooked or processed food items like Blackstrap became a way of learning how to make something from literally nothing.

But if you are a scientific baker who has a "reuse" mentality, you can figure out how to use such things as Blackstrap.

Is it edible? Yes.
Does it taste good? No.

But it does have its uses, just like most all byproducts of modern production. But the knowledge and benefits come from knowing what to do with these "disposable" byproducts and how to use them.

(gawd! Am I REALLY this old???)

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Yeah, I come from a farming family as well.

Although my family background was more of the poor side of the tracks. My granny and her sisters had to pull cotton in the summers in order to have food and clothes. My granny told me they didn't throw anything away, everything had a use or reuse. Nothing was ever wasted

Yes, that's how life was when I was a kid too. My grandparents lived 10 miles outside a town with a population of 150. It was a two hour drive to the big city. If anything broke, it was only replaced with a new purchase if a used one couldn't be found at Junky George's up the road. Junky George had a huge garage filled with second stuff he collected throughout the county. For $1 you could get a replacement kitchen faucet knob instead of ordering one for $3 from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Oh but how we loved to go through all the pages in the Sears Christmas Wish Book

My brothers, sisters, and I can fix just about anything. It was a given that if something in the house malfunctioned or broke, you would know how to repair or replace it. It's a good thing too because every woman in my family married a man doesn't even know how to use a hammer. The one time I let my former husband use tools it was to install shelving in the garage. He ended up drilling multiple holes through the pipe that drains the wash machine. The plumber was so sympathetic that the second time he came out to repair additional holes in the pipe he said, "No charge ma'am."

 

[ChesterV]

Yes, that's how life was when I was a kid too. My grandparents lived 10 miles outside a town with a population of 150. It was a two hour drive to the big city. If anything broke, it was only replaced with a new purchase if a used one couldn't be found at Junky George's up the road. Junky George had a huge garage filled with second stuff he collected throughout the county. For $1 you could get a replacement kitchen faucet knob instead of ordering one for $3 from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Oh but how we loved to go through all the pages in the Sears Christmas Wish Book

My brothers, sisters, and I can fix just about anything. It was a given that if something in the house malfunctioned or broke, you would know how to repair or replace it. It's a good thing too because every woman in my family married a man doesn't even know how to use a hammer. The one time I let my former husband use tools it was to install shelving in the garage. He ended up drilling multiple holes through the pipe that drains the wash machine. The plumber was so sympathetic that the second time he came out to repair additional holes in the pipe he said, "No charge ma'am."

Yep........

I think the only "new" things we ever got when I was growing up, was what we got for C'mas or your Birthday.
Although my granny had been working for years in the hotel industry by then, and had her own house. A long cry from working in cotton fields and having to sleep 5 to a bed!!!!

She still saved stuff though. When she passed away, most all of her kitchen drawers were full of old, washed out, reused plastic bags, pieces of aluminum foil, styrofoam cups, plastic forks and spoons, etc. Apparently, after family reunions, she would go through the garbage and take out all the plasticware and cups that were thrown out, take them home, wash them out and stick them in the drawer or cupboard.

She never even threw out stuff that was in the freezer!!! She passed in 2005, and when I cleaned out her freezer, there was stuff in there labeled from the 80's!!!! It was so freezer burned, I couldn't even tell what any of it was.

Wow. I miss my granny.

Dang...........I feel so old now.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Yep........

I think the only "new" things we ever got when I was growing up, was what we got for C'mas or your Birthday.
Although my granny had been working for years in the hotel industry by then, and had her own house. A long cry from working in cotton fields and having to sleep 5 to a bed!!!!

She still saved stuff though. When she passed away, most all of her kitchen drawers were full of old, washed out, reused plastic bags, pieces of aluminum foil, styrofoam cups, plastic forks and spoons, etc. Apparently, after family reunions, she would go through the garbage and take out all the plasticware and cups that were thrown out, take them home, wash them out and stick them in the drawer or cupboard.

She never even threw out stuff that was in the freezer!!! She passed in 2005, and when I cleaned out her freezer, there was stuff in there labeled from the 80's!!!! It was so freezer burned, I couldn't even tell what any of it was.

Wow. I miss my granny.

Dang...........I feel so old now.

Oh, i'm so sorry for your loss. Your granny sounds like my grandmother. As my grandfather would say, " you can take the gal out of the country, but you'll never take the country out of the gal." The roots of strong women like our grandmothers live on through us.

 

[Margot]

I think that a lot of us grew up wanting in some way. We, too, had that proverbial drawer of bread wrappers. It was often used to carry our lunches to school as we didn't 'purchase' lunch bags. My mother came over on the boat from England. Grandfather was a musician, and when the great depression hit, the music industry was the first to lose their jobs. Dispensable. Mother talked a couple of times about Sunday supper being molasses on whole wheat bread and considered it a treat. Who else has a story to tell about the lack of abundance turning into something special?