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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

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

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. Boil the milk and molasses together.

  2. Mix the chocolate with just enough boiling milk and molasses to moisten and rub smooth.

  3. Stir the sugar into the boiling liquid.

  4. Add the butter and boil for twenty minutes, or until it hardens in water.

Set and finish

  1. Pour onto buttered plates and, when cold, cut into squares.

  2. Wrap each square in oiled paper.

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. 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. Butter + chocolatetop 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

Brown sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and, as it dissolves and cooks, the caramel flavour.
Dark molasses
Adds deep flavour and extra moisture, and contributes to the chewy, dark colour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the caramels a smooth, tender texture.
Unsweetened chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavour and deepens the colour of the caramel.
Milk
Adds dairy solids and moisture that give the caramel a creamy, softer chew.

The step that matters

Boil the butter mixture for twenty minutes until it hardens in water. Sugar cooked to the right point sets firm when cooled. Too little cooking leaves the caramels soft and sticky, while overcooking makes them hard and brittle. Testing a drop in cold water shows when the sugar has reached the correct stage.

“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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