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Dessert

Caramel Filling

A sweet caramel mixture made from brown sugar, molasses, butter, milk, flour, water, vanilla chocolate, baking soda, and vanilla essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Caramel Filling

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Caramel Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, stir together brown sugar, molasses, and melted butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add hot milk and flour mixed with cold water; mix well.

  3. Heat and boil for 5 minutes, stirring often.

  4. Add grated vanilla chocolate and boil for another 5 minutes.

  5. Stir in baking soda and remove from heat after 1 minute.

  6. Flavor with vanilla or other essence.

Finish and set

  1. Once cooled, spread between cake layers and on top, then set in the sun to dry.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep caramel flavor to the filling.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a rich, slightly bitter depth of flavor.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as it heats, giving the filling body.
Vanilla chocolate
Adds fat and chocolate flavor, and helps the filling set as it cools.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses, darkening the color and softening the texture.

The step that matters

Stir in baking soda and remove from heat after 1 minute. Baking soda reacts quickly with the acidic molasses and foams. Removing the pan after about a minute stops the reaction before the filling darkens too far, turns bitter, or boils over.

“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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