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Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate Caramels are made by boiling chocolate, milk, molasses, and sugar with butter until hard drop, then set in blocks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 grated chocolate, milk, molasses, and sugar.

  2. Add the butter and boil the mixture until it reaches a hard drop stage.

Set and mark

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan.

  2. Before it cools, mark off the mixture into square blocks.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Chocolate + buttertop 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

Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and deep colour of the caramel.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the texture of the caramel.
Molasses
Adds depth, colour and a slightly bitter sweetness that complements the chocolate.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and, once boiled, sets into the firm caramel texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and a softer bite.

The step that matters

Boiling to the hard drop stage. Sugar syrup must reach the right temperature to set firm when cool. Too short a boil leaves the caramels soft and sticky; too long 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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