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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A caramel candy made with brown sugar, milk, molasses, butter, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine brown sugar, milk, molasses, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture reaches a soft ball stage.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the Baker's chocolate until melted and smooth.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pan and let it cool before cutting 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

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 the caramel flavor, and helps the mixture set firm.
Milk
Adds moisture and dairy richness, and helps form the soft caramel texture.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark color, and a slightly bitter note to the caramel.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and richer flavor.
Baker's chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the caramel base.

The step that matters

Cooking to the soft ball stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set correctly. Undercooked caramel stays soft and sticky, while overcooked caramel becomes hard and brittle. Stirring constantly prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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