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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

A sweet caramel candy made with cream, sugars, chocolate, corn starch, baking soda, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream, brown sugar, white sugar, grated chocolate, corn starch, and baking soda.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the chocolate until well combined.

  4. Return the pan to the heat and boil for an additional 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into well-buttered shallow dishes.

  2. Once cooled enough to handle, cut into squares.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the caramel a soft, smooth texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavor, deepening the caramel's color and taste.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the caramel set firm as it cooks.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and fat, enriching the caramel's taste and body.
Corn starch
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape when cooled.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sugars to lighten the color and soften the texture of the caramel.

The step that matters

Stirring during the final boil. Constant stirring during the last 10 minutes prevents the sugars and cream from scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt flavor and dark specks.

“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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