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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A caramel candy made with white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, chocolate, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine white sugar, brown sugar, and molasses in a saucepan.

  2. Add the Baker’s chocolate and cream or milk.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage.

Set and cut

  1. Pour into a greased pan and let cool before cutting into squares.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Molasses + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Provides sweetness and, when cooked, helps form the firm caramel structure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the caramel flavour.
Molasses
Adds moisture, chewy texture and a deeper, slightly bitter flavour.
Baker’s chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and richness to the caramel.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and moisture, making the caramel softer and smoother.

The step that matters

Cooking to the soft ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set correctly. Stirring constantly prevents scorching on the base of the pan, and stopping at the soft ball stage gives a chewy rather than hard or grainy caramel.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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