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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet treat made by cooking chocolate, sugar, molasses, milk, cinnamon, and butter until crisp, then cooling and cutting into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 chocolate, sugar, molasses, milk, cinnamon, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the mixture is a little crisp in the water.

Set

  1. Remove from heat and beat well until smooth.

  2. Pour into a greased pan and let 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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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, as it cooks, builds the firm body of the caramel.
Molasses
Adds depth, moisture and a darker flavor to the caramel.
Milk
Adds dairy richness and moisture, softening the texture of the candy.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender bite and rich flavor.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and color to the caramel base.

The step that matters

Cooking until a little crisp in the water. Sugar cooked too briefly stays soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes the candy hard or scorched. Stirring often over medium heat prevents sugar from burning on the pan bottom and keeps the mixture even, so the caramel sets to the intended texture.

“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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