Why it works: Sugar and condensed milk work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 804 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Cheap Caramels
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
In a copper kettle, combine sugar and glucose.
Dilute part of the condensed milk with a little water and add it to the kettle.
Set the kettle on the fire and stir, cooking for a few minutes.
Gradually add the remaining milk until all is used.
Add paraffin wax and cook until it reaches a stiff ball stage.
Vary and finish
Optionally, add flour or beaten whole eggs for variation, but avoid flour when cooking over an open fire.
You can also add chocolate or nuts near the end of cooking.
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 + condensed milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together804 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the candy's body as it cooks down.
- Glucose
- Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the caramel smooth and chewy rather than grainy.
- Condensed milk
- Adds milk solids and sweetness, and contributes to the caramel flavour and soft texture.
- Paraffin wax
- Gives the finished caramels a firm set and a glossy, non-sticky finish.
The step that matters
Cooking to a stiff ball stage. Sugar candy sets by temperature, so stopping too early leaves soft, sticky caramels and cooking too long makes them hard and brittle. Stirring also prevents scorching on the base of the kettle.
“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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