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Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate caramels made from sweet milk, molasses, sugar, grated chocolate, and butter.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

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

  2. Stir continually and bring to a boil until thick.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered plates.

  2. When it begins to stiffen, mark it in squares for easy breaking when cold.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Sweet milk
Adds liquid and milk solids that give the caramels a creamy, soft body.
Molasses
Provides moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that helps the caramels stay chewy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture thicken into a firm, chewy candy as it cooks.
Grated chocolate
Supplies the chocolate flavor and some fat that makes the caramels richer.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a tender texture in the finished caramels.

The step that matters

Stir continually while boiling. Sugar and milk solids can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred. Scorching gives a burnt taste and uneven color, and stirring keeps the heat even as the mixture thickens.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, sugar, chocolate, 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.

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