Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate Caramels are a sweet treat made by boiling chocolate, molasses, milk, and sugar, then adding butter and setting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Cook the caramel

  1. Combine chocolate, molasses, milk, and sugar in a saucepan and boil the mixture.

  2. When nearly done, add the butter and stir until the chocolate is fully dissolved.

  3. Check if the mixture hardens quickly when dropped in cold water; do not overcook.

Set and cut

  1. Grease plates with butter and pour the mixture onto them.

  2. Once nearly cool, cut into small squares with a greased knife.

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. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Chocolate + sugartop 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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Adds deep flavor and fat, giving the caramel a rich, smooth body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark, slightly bitter caramel flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk solids that soften the texture and mellow the sugar.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as water evaporates on boiling, the body that lets the caramel set.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and helps keep the mixture from sticking.

The step that matters

Check the hardness in cold water and do not overcook. As water boils off, the sugar concentration rises. Overcooking pushes the mixture past the chewy stage into hard, brittle candy, so testing in cold water catches it in time.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, molasses, milk, sugar, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, molasses, milk, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipes