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Dessert

Coarse Caramels

A chewy caramel candy made with brown sugar, milk, butter, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Coarse Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, combine the light brown sugar, milk, and butter.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture reaches a soft ball stage.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the Baker's chocolate until melted and smooth.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pan and let it cool before cutting into 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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  4. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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

Light brown sugar
Provides sweetness and caramel flavour, and helps the candy set firm.
Milk
Adds moisture and dairy richness, and helps the sugar form a smooth candy.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Baker's chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and deepens the colour of the candy.

The step that matters

Cooking to soft ball stage. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the sugar from scorching on the bottom of the pan. Reaching the soft ball stage controls how much water is left, which sets the final firmness of the candy.

“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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