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Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate caramels made by boiling chocolate, milk, molasses, sugar, butter, and vinegar until hard drop.

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

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the grated chocolate, milk, and molasses.

  4. After a while, add the vinegar.

  5. Boil the mixture until it reaches a hard drop stage.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and colour to the caramel.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled, the firm body of the caramel.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark colour and a chewy, moist texture.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness, giving the caramel a smoother bite.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Boiling to the hard drop stage. Caramel sets according to how much water has boiled off. Stopping too early leaves it soft and sticky, while boiling too long makes it hard and brittle. Reaching the target stage controls the final chew.

“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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