Molasses is a thick, dark, sweet syrup that's left over when sugar is made from sugar cane or sugar beets. When workers crush sugar cane and boil the juice to make white sugar crystals, molasses is what remains: a sticky, brown liquid with a strong, rich sweetness.

You might find molasses in gingerbread cookies, baked beans, or shoofly pie. It has a deeper, more complex taste than regular sugar, almost earthy and slightly bitter. Because it's so thick and flows so slowly, people use the phrase slow as molasses to describe anything that moves at a frustrating crawl. On a cold day, molasses becomes even thicker and barely moves at all, which is why you might hear slow as molasses in January.

Before refined white sugar became cheap and common, molasses was a major sweetener in American cooking. Colonial families used it constantly because it cost less than sugar. Today, bakers still use molasses when they want that distinctive deep, rich flavor that regular sugar can't provide.