Sugars · Mo

Molasses

Reducing sugar · accelerates Maillard

Per 100 g

290 kcal Energy

0 g Protein

70 g Carbs

0 g Fat

0 g Fibre

Gluten-free

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They do more than sweeten: they bind moisture, raise the boiling point and produce colour and crust. A jam sets and keeps because of sugar.

Where it catches you out

Each sugar browns at its own temperature. Sucrose at 160 °C, the fructose in honey and molasses at 110 — anything with honey burns sooner.

The knack

High in reducing sugars: it speeds Maillard up and colours early in the oven.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

An unopened jar keeps two years in the cupboard, a year once opened somewhere cool and dark. Sugar settling at the bottom is not spoilage.

Gluten-free

Pekmez is fruit juice boiled down to a syrup; in its plain form it contains no gluten.

What it works with

Pairings, and the reason for each

"They go well together" is not an explanation. Every pairing below has a chemical or structural mechanism under it.

Tahini →

The classic tahin-pekmez: sesame fat coats the palate and slows sugar delivery so the syrup reads as rich rather than cloying, while the lignans’ faint bitterness gives it a boundary.

Also works with

Walnut

Milk

Yoghurt

White cheese

Flour

Butter

Cinnamon

What goes on top

Over tahini, yoghurt, bread and milk puddings

Key compounds

Melanoidinler: Caramelisation and Maillard products from the concentration boil, giving the colour and that faintly burnt-caramel depth.

Nutritionally

Molasses supplies roughly 1.2 mg of iron per 20 g tablespoon — real, but non-heme iron in a sugar matrix. The tradition of molasses for anaemia is defensible only when paired with a vitamin C source; alone, absorption is poor.

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