Why it works: Buckwheat and flour work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 660 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Caramels No. 6
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Mix the eggs with the cream.
Combine sugar, glucose, and 1 quart of cream in a copper pan.
Heat and stir until boiling.
Continue stirring and slowly add the remaining cream until fully incorporated.
Melt a small piece of butter in a separate small pan. Add a little of the boiling mixture to the melted butter. Stir in the flour to form a smooth paste.
Add the paste to the boiling mixture when nearly done.
Cook until it reaches a good ball stage.
Remove from heat. Stir in the vanillin.
Set and cut
Pour onto a greased slab between iron bars.
Allow to cool.
Cut into strips. Cut into small squares.
Chocolate variation
For chocolate caramels: add chocolate to the butter. Add a little of the boiling mixture. Mix with flour into a smooth paste.
Add shortly before the batch is done.
Cook slightly lower.
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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Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together660 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the caramel's body as it cooks down.
- Eggs
- Add richness and help bind the mixture as it sets.
- Pure cream
- Adds fat and moisture, giving the caramel a soft, smooth texture.
- Glucose
- Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the caramel smooth and chewy.
- Buckwheat flour
- Thickens the mixture into a smooth paste that firms the caramel's body.
The step that matters
Adding the flour paste. Flour must be fully blended into the melted butter first and added near the end of cooking; lumps or early addition cause a grainy texture or uneven thickening.
Swap the buckwheat
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, egg, flour, butter):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Buckwheatthe original
- Capersfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, egg, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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