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Dessert

Nellie's Caramels

A caramel candy with nuts, made from brown sugar, white sugar, water, lemon juice, chocolate, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Nellie's Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate caramel

  1. Heat 1 pound brown sugar, 1 cup sweetened chocolate, and butter the size of an egg until thick as taffy.

  2. Pour onto buttered plates, and mark into squares when cool enough.

Make the nut caramel

  1. Grease a shallow square pan with butter.

  2. Fill the pan with hickory nut kernels, sliced Brazil nuts, almonds, sliced coconut, dates, and orange peel.

  3. Melt 2 pounds white sugar with 1 cup water, boil without stirring until the crack.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice and pour over the nuts in the pan.

  5. When cool, mark in narrow strips with a knife.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

318Calories
2 gProtein
20 gFat
33 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 6 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and a deep caramel flavor, and helps the candy set firm.
White sugar
Forms the syrup that hardens into the candy's structure as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and gives a rich, smooth bite.
Sweetened chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the caramel base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar syrup from turning grainy.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar syrup without stirring. Stirring hot sugar syrup can trigger sugar crystals to form, leaving the candy grainy. Cooking it to the crack stage without stirring gives a firm, smooth set once cooled.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, chocolate, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate, 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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