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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet treat made by boiling cream, sugar, molasses, butter, and chocolate, then setting into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream, brown sugar, molasses, and butter.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Add the grated chocolate and continue boiling until done.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto a buttered flat dish.

  2. Mark into squares as soon as it cools enough.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  5. 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

Rich cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the caramels a soft, creamy texture.
Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it cooks, helps build the caramel flavor and color.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark color and a slightly bitter note that balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel in the finished caramel.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and richness to the boiled mixture.

The step that matters

Boiling until done. Cooking the mixture long enough drives off water and brings the sugars to the right concentration. Too little boiling leaves the caramels soft and sticky, while too much 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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