Friday 15 December 2006

Urgent

I NEED TO KNOW BY TOMORROW

what is "unsulfured molasses"? I'm pretty sure you can't get molasses of any kind in Australia (or maybe I'm wrong and you can). So what can I get from the supermarket that would be an acceptable substitute?

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is no molasses in Melb? Pack & leave as soon as you can.

Anonymous said...

(and you should, surely, be able to find tins of it lurking among the golden syrup/sugar areas. Surely? & i recall unsulphured is the really really heavy dark molasses - rather like bitumen. Though slightly sweeter.)

Anonymous said...

Try treacle

Anonymous said...

Like anonymous says, treacle, or for an even milder taste, use golden syrup. A big mistake for Aussies is to assume what US recipes call molasses is what is sold here as molasses (properly called blackstrap molasses and without sulphur as far as I can tell). Tried making a gingerbread cake with our molasses once - it was disgusting.

My favourite food guide (McGee on Food and Cooking) states that: "..[molasses was] the only form of sugar available to slaves and the poor of the rural South, usually bleached with sulfur dioxide and strongly sulfurous to the taste." He then descibes in more detail the different molasses and sugar syrup blends (not something I've seen here).

Scrivener said...

I think sulfured molasses means blackstrap molasses, which is not sweet at all and tastes pretty nasty. So unsulfured molasses means get regular molasses not blackstrap molasses.

Molasses Substitute
For 1 cup, use

1 cup honey; or 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar; or 1 cup dark corn syrup; or 1 cup pure maple syrup. Treacle is also supposed to be a good substitute, but I know nothing of treacle.

Scrivener said...

THis site indicated that treacle is a subsitute for blackstrap molasses. So if I'm wrong in my comment above, then it's a good substitute.

What are you trying to make? Do you want something bitter? Or are you making something like gingerbread, which usu calls for molasses?

elaine said...

I think the point with using molasses/ treacle is the malty/caramelly flavour?

My vote (if this is a democratis process) would be with treacle. Or the super dark brown sugar.

I like treacle, not least because it comes in those cool ye olde fashioned tins.

Anonymous said...

Baz-lotto! For the very first time!

GS said...

Ditto blackstrap molasses. If this is what you really need, try a health food store. It was touted in the hippy days of a source of many nutrients. Not the most appetising of tastes though. For a cake or sweet thing, I also add my vote to treacle.

Speaking of which - anyone know what "pop goes the weasle" means?

iODyne said...

Can't help with the weasel phrase sorry.

oh Lucy I am so pleased you have that wealth of help from you readers
1. they KNOW
and
2. they CARE.

and the Bazlotto pic of
The Finger Of Tartan and
The Paw of Baz made me think
"...and God Created Adam"

X X Brownie

( I have not switched to Beta Blogger but it seems it's more of a beta-blocker)

iODyne said...

Calling 'another' ... Come In 'another' ?
You have 'not elected to show your profile' according to Blogger so I have to use this thread to thank you for leading me to The Blog Of Funk where I found out:

""...in North America, the opening line was generally "all around the mulberry bush," possibly due to conflation with the similar tune "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush." In the UK, however, it was usually "all around the cobbler's bench." This gives us a better idea of the song's original meaning. Most authorities think "Pop Goes the Weasel" describes the acts of weaving, spinning, and sewing. A weasel, Tom reports, was a mechanism used by tailors, cobblers, and hatters that "popped" when the spool was full of thread.

Some argue that to pop the weasel is also cockney slang meaning to pawn one's coat. This makes sense in light of the second verse of the kids' version: "A penny for a spool of thread / A penny for a needle / That's the way the money goes," etc. A version popular in 19th-century English music halls makes things even clearer: "Up and down the City Road / In and out the Eagle / That's the way the money goes," etc. The Eagle in question was a London tavern; clearly the lyricist was describing the consequences of spending too little time at the cobbler's bench and too much on a barstool."


(and that's why I love blogging - I learn something every day and soon I will be too clever to die)

Anonymous said...

I have nothing new to say, but can not stress this enough: blackstrap molasses rarely ends in good things. It is very, very good for you, but as far as I can ascertain is not edible. I have two jars in my fridge for some reason.

The Billingtons brands of sugar, although expensive, are very good and worth it if you are trying to make something special to share with special people. They have some good very dark sugars.

Anonymous said...

Mollases is an American word for treacle, which was a slum delicacy here up until the 1960s, at which time the advent of large supermarkets afforded the lower orders an opportunity to shoplift something better. All right? Good. Because that is a sociological fact, and sociology is never wrong. As you know. That's right. Meanwhile, certain restaurants here in Brisbane sometimes have the cheek to put treacle in their CREME BRULEE! Yes. But they don't last long.

Marcus Knowallus!
(Disagree, and you're banned!)

Anonymous said...

Miss Brownie, cut the cackle, everyone knows that only a true alcoholic (like yourself) would pawn their coat in the middle of winter to buy a wine cask.

Stop trying to be a scholar!

Markus Knowallus!

peacay said...

Good for swimming.
We used to feed it to our neighbour's horse with his oats. We kids would also eat both that and dog biscuits coz we could. *shudder*

The Devil Drink said...

Markus knowallus, for shame. Molasses purified from cane sugar is the chief ingredient of rum. It *is* a ghetto delicacy, but not the kind you give to kids, horses, or Southerners.

Anonymous said...

Sociology is never shamed. It has evidence for everything. So don't argue, not with me, your Southerners were gamblers and dance hall girls, if they'd guzzled rum instead of moonshine they'd have won the Civil War.

-Markus Knowallus!
(Now accepting donations)

The Devil Drink said...

I doubt that very much MK. The US dance hall was very much a postbellum innovation.
If the Southerners did drink rum and thus lose the Civil War I can only say that they made the correct strategic decision, and made the most efficient allocation of resources.

lucy tartan said...

Aren't you all the learned ones.

The Devil Drink said...

Well I *am* the Devil. Amongst the lies and temptation and deceitfulness you're bound to pick up a few useful pearls.
Keep reading those books, Ms Laura, and osmosifying the knowledges. Book learnin' is one of the achievements of which I'm proudest: it's a little known fact that every paragraph of literature you read makes baby Jesus shed a tear.
More than one, if it's Patrick White.

Anonymous said...

'The most efficient allocation of resources' I can recall is when Billy McMahon took Sonia to America and showed them her legs. ho ho ho.

Markus Knowallus!

Anonymous said...

P is for Pedant.

(And Paypal)

-Markus Knowallus!

Suse said...

Bit late but I'm just catching up on old posts.

My cockney mum always told me that the pop goes the weasel song was a real cockney London song. They could only afford to eat 'half a pound of tuppeny rice, half a pound of treacle' mixed up to make it palatable, and they had to 'pop' (pawn) the 'weasel' (rhyming slang for coat [weasel and stoat]) each week until the next pay came in. The next bit goes 'up and down the City streets, in and out the Eagle, that's the way money goes, etc". The Eagle was a pub in Hackney. They'd spend their pay at the pub and then have to pawn the coat all over again.

Anonymous said...

Yes, this is interesting, and jogs the old memory a bit, because 'Pop' was a euphemism for any pawnbroker (I think that's correct), and happily, it turns out that a certain disreputable acquaintance of mine - who, may I say, is not unknown as a commenter on these blogs - was an expert at this game, pawning his own property and lots of other people's. It appears that every inner suburb once had a pawn shop, and he says that one celebrated old dear with a pawn shop in Richmond had a HUGE CAT always stretched across the counter. Pledges were passed over the cat, which was never to be disturbed -not even when the police turned up looking for hot goods, of which there were plenty. But it's a case of trading in "good faith" you know, which she always did (ho ho ho) and never got pinched. Nor did the cat.

Markus Knowallus!
(Sociology Rules)

Melly` said...

Molasses is still very much used in the feeds of Australian racehorses to make it more palatable for them. The trainers buy it in huge 44 gallon drums. I used to have to stop my children from eating it from the drums.. cause it would also attract (and drown) cockroaches and other such nastys... and the kids LOVED to eat it.