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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet candy made from molasses, sugar, milk, chocolate, and butter, boiled and cut into pieces.

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. Boil the milk and molasses together.

  2. Grate the chocolate.

  3. Mix the grated chocolate with just enough of the boiling milk and molasses to moisten.

  4. Rub the chocolate mixture until perfectly smooth.

  5. Stir the smooth chocolate into the boiling liquid along with the sugar.

  6. Add the butter and boil for 20 minutes.

  7. Test the mixture as molasses candy.

Set and cut

  1. If it hardens, pour it into a buttered dish.

  2. Before it cools completely, cut into pieces.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 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

Molasses
Provides dark color, rich flavor and chewy body to the caramel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the caramel as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture set into candy.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and deepens the color of the caramel.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a tender bite in the finished candy.

The step that matters

Testing the mixture as molasses candy. Caramel sets according to how far its sugar concentration has risen while boiling. Too little cooking leaves it soft and sticky, while too much makes it hard and brittle, so the test decides when it is ready.

“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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