Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet candy made from sugar, glucose, water, cream, butter, chocolate, and vanilla, boiled until hard and cut into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, stir together sugar, glucose (or cream of tartar), and boiling water.

  2. Boil the mixture without stirring until it snaps when tested in water.

  3. Add cream, butter, and grated chocolate, then boil slowly while stirring until it hardens when dropped in cold water.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Set and cut

  1. Pour into buttered pans and let cool.

  2. Once cold, cut 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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the bulk of the caramel and provides its sweetness and firm set when cooked.
Glucose or cream of tartar
Interferes with sugar crystallization, keeping the caramel smooth rather than grainy.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the caramel a softer, creamier texture.
Butter
Contributes fat for richness and a smooth, tender bite.
Baker's chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and deepens the color of the caramel.

The step that matters

Boil without stirring until it snaps in water. Stirring sugar syrup as it boils can trigger crystallization, making the caramel grainy. The firmness of the test in cold water shows how much water has cooked off, which controls the final set.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipes