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Dessert

Chocolate Caramel

A chocolate caramel candy made by boiling chocolate, milk, molasses, butter, and baking soda until it sets.

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 Caramel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chocolate, sweet milk, molasses, butter, and baking soda.

  2. Bring to a boil without stirring until it hardens when dropped into water.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto buttered pans.

  2. Mark off into squares before it hardens.

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. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Chocolate + molassestop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Baker's chocolate
Adds fat and deep, bitter chocolate flavor and colour to the candy.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark colour, and a chewy, moist texture.
Sweet milk
Adds milk solids for creaminess and a softer, smoother bite.
Butter
Contributes fat for a rich mouthfeel and smoother texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses, lightening the candy and changing its texture.

The step that matters

Boiling without stirring. As the mixture cooks, its sugar concentration rises until it sets when cooled. Stirring at this stage can trigger sugar crystals, making the candy grainy instead of smooth.

“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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