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Nellie's Caramels

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Nellie's Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine brown sugar, sweet milk, and sweetened chocolate in a saucepan.

  2. Add butter and heat until the mixture thickens to a taffy-like consistency.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto buttered plates.

  2. When cool enough, mark 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 + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the main sweetness and the deep caramel flavor as it cooks.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the texture of the sugar mixture.
Sweetened chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and darkens the color of the caramel.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture and a softer bite.

The step that matters

Heating to a taffy-like consistency. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises and the mixture firms as it cools. Stopping too early leaves the caramels soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes them hard and brittle.

“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.

More caramels recipes

Chocolate 316Coconut 37Vanilla 22Maple 18Opera 16Cream 13 See all 12 →

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