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Home Caramels

A caramel confection made by boiling chocolate, sugar, molasses, milk, and butter until it hardens.

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 ↓

Home Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the grated chocolate, sugar, molasses, milk, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture until it hardens when dropped into cold water.

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. 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

Baker's chocolate
Adds rich chocolate flavor, cocoa solids and fat for a deep color.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as water boils off, sets into the firm chewy body.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor, dark color and moisture that keeps the caramel chewy.
Milk
Adds moisture and milk proteins and sugars that soften the texture and add browning.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the caramel tender, smooth and less likely to turn grainy.

The step that matters

Boil until it hardens in cold water. As water boils off, the sugar mixture becomes more concentrated and firmer. Stopping too early leaves caramels soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes them hard and brittle. The cold-water test shows when the mixture has reached the right firmness.

“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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