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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet treat made by boiling brown sugar, chocolate, milk, molasses, and butter until thick, then setting and cutting into squares.

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 Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine brown sugar, chocolate, milk, molasses, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until thick.

Set and cut

  1. Spread the mixture on a buttered dish.

  2. When slightly cool, mark in squares with a knife and break when cold.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and moisture, and helps give the caramel its chewy body as it cooks.
Chocolate
Adds rich flavor and cocoa fat that deepens the caramel's taste and texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk solids that make the caramel softer and creamier.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor and color, and extra moisture that keeps the caramel soft.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the caramel smooth and tender rather than brittle.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick. The firmness of caramel depends on how much water has cooked off and how concentrated the sugar is. 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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