Reading the Labels

• When you search your bottle or carton of molasses for the expiration date, it's easy to get a little confused by the wording. If you see a "best before" date, this means the manufacturer feels the quality and flavor of the product is best if it is used before that date. Laws requiring foods and beverages be sold by those dates vary by state. The "best before" date may be worded as "best if used by" or "best by." Whatever words are used, molasses is fine to consume after this date has come and gone. If stored properly, you can use it for more than a year after the date, although the quality might not be exactly the same.

Maintaining Quality

• Once you get your molasses home from the store, maintaining the quality is up to you to a certain degree. If you store it in its original container in steady humidity and in a temperature ranging from 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, it should maintain its quality for at least one year. If you put the molasses in the fridge, the natural sugars may crystallize, which negatively affects the quality. Molasses isn't an ingredient regularly used by many home cooks, so setting yourself up for long-term use makes sense.

Grades of Molasses

• Molasses comes in three different grades, and each one is sold commercially. Light molasses, also called mild or Barbados molasses, has been boiled only one time during processing. The flavor is mild and it is quite sweet. Dark molasses, also called cooking molasses or full molasses, has been boiled two times and has a slightly bitter taste. This is the kind used most often for cooking and baking. Blackstrap molasses has been boiled at least three times -- and sometimes more. It has the strongest flavor, and many people use it for nutritional purposes.

Using Molasses

• If you want to use light molasses, it usually is sweet enough to pour right on top of cereal or pancakes as a syrup replacement. Dark molasses works well in gingerbread cookies, cakes and breads, giving it that telltale deep color. Aside from its nutritional uses, blackstrap molasses is used in animal feed but not in baking recipes. Molasses is a good substitute for brown sugar if you don't have any and need it for a recipe. Using 1 1/2 tablespoons of dark molasses and 1 cup of regular white sugar replaces 1 cup of firmly packed light-brown sugar in your recipe.