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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet candy made by boiling sugar, water, and glucose, then adding chocolate and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the caramel

  1. In a large pot, combine the sugar, cold water, and glucose.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches a brittle stage.

  3. Stir in the melted chocolate and cream.

  4. Boil again until it reaches a brittle stage.

  5. Add flavoring of your choice.

Finish

  1. Mark the caramels when they are partly cool.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Forms the caramel base and provides the main sweetness as it cooks down.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystals so the caramel stays smooth rather than grainy.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and colour to the caramel.
Cream
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture and a creamy flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling again to the brittle stage. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises, and small differences in how far the mixture cooks change whether the caramels set soft or hard. Cooking too little leaves them sticky, and cooking too far makes them hard.

“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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