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 ↓
Saratoga Caramels
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 246°F (119°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Cook the caramel
Dissolve the sugar and glucose in water over heat.
Cook the mixture to 246°F (119°C).
Add the cream and caramel paste, then cook to hard ball stage at 250°F (121°C).
Shape and cut
Pour the mixture onto a slab and pull it until smooth.
Spread it out on the slab and roll it down smooth with a rolling pin.
Cut into pieces when cold.
Optionally, knead in nut meats for added flavor.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the body that the cooked mixture sets into.
- Glucose
- Interferes with sugar crystals, keeping the caramel smooth and less grainy.
- Cream
- Adds fat and softness, giving the caramel a rich, tender texture.
- Caramel paste
- Supplies the concentrated caramel flavor and colour.
The step that matters
Cooking to the hard ball stage. Sugar concentration rises quickly near the final temperature, so small overshoots make the caramel firmer and harder to cut, while stopping early leaves it soft and sticky. Reaching the stated temperatures with a reliable thermometer controls the final texture.
“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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