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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet treat made by cooking milk, molasses, sugar, chocolate, and butter into a caramel-like consistency.

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. Grate the chocolate.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Stir in the grated chocolate until melted.

  4. Gradually add the molasses and sugar, stirring continuously.

  5. Cook until it reaches the consistency of molasses candy.

Cool and cut

  1. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  2. Cut into ½-inch 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. Molasses + sugartop 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. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep flavour, and helps give the caramels a chewy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks with the liquids, helps set the caramel's texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and soft texture, and its milk sugars contribute to browning as it cooks.
Chocolate
Adds flavour and richness from its cocoa solids and fat.

The step that matters

Cook until it reaches the consistency of molasses candy. Sugar syrups set as they cool, so stopping too early leaves the caramels soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes them hard and brittle.

“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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