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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet treat made from brown sugar, molasses, chocolate, milk, flour, and butter, cooked until thick and cut into pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, molasses, grated chocolate, boiled milk, and flour.

  2. Add butter and bring the mixture to a slow boil.

  3. Continue boiling until it reaches the desired consistency.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto flat tins to cool.

  2. While still warm, mark the caramels into pieces.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides sweetness and bulk, and helps the caramel set chewy as it cools.
Molasses
Adds depth, moisture and a darker, slightly acidic flavour to the caramel.
Grated chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and adds fat that firms the caramel as it cools.
Boiled milk
Adds dairy solids that give the caramel a creamy, soft texture.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape rather than running when set.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel in the finished caramel.

The step that matters

Continue boiling until it reaches the desired consistency. Sugar concentration determines firmness: boiling longer drives off water, so stopping early gives soft, sticky caramels while overcooking makes them hard and brittle. Check consistency rather than relying on time alone.

“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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