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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet candy made from condensed milk, cream, sugar, glucose, and chocolate, cooked to a soft ball stage and cut into cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel base

  1. Mix the condensed milk and sweet cream, reserving half of the mixture.

  2. Combine the reserved mixture, sugar, and glucose in a saucepan.

  3. Cook over low heat until half done.

  4. Remove from heat.

Add the chocolate and finish

  1. Melt the chocolate over hot water, adding the reserved cream gradually until dissolved.

  2. Strain the melted chocolate into the candy mixture.

  3. Return to the stove.

  4. Cook until it reaches a soft ball stage.

  5. Pour the mixture into buttered tins to a depth of ¾ inch.

  6. Once cool, cut into cubes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Condensed milk + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  5. Condensed milk + chocolatetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together541 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

Condensed milk
Adds milk solids and sweetness, giving the caramel a soft, chewy body.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it cooks, the caramel flavour and firm set.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallisation, keeping the caramel smooth rather than grainy.
Chocolate
Supplies cocoa flavour and fat, adding richness and deepening the colour.

The step that matters

Cooking to soft ball stage. Caramel sets according to its final sugar concentration. Stopping too early leaves it soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and brittle once cool.

“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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