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Dessert

Maple Caramels

Maple caramels are a sweet confection made from sugar, maple sugar, cream, butter, and tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Maple Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine granulated sugar, maple sugar, and heavy cream in a saucepan.

  2. Heat slowly until it begins to boil.

  3. Add butter and cream of tartar.

  4. Cook slowly until it reaches the hard crack stage (snaps in cold water).

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture onto buttered tins.

  2. Mark into squares while warm.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Provides the main sweetness and the bulk of the caramel structure as it sets.
Maple sugar
Adds maple flavour and sweetness to the caramel.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the caramels a softer, creamier texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, smoothing the texture and adding flavour.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that helps prevent sugar crystallising, keeping the caramel smooth.

The step that matters

Cook to the hard crack stage. Sugar syrup must reach the hard crack stage to set firm. Stopping early leaves caramels soft and sticky, while cooking too far makes them brittle. Heating slowly helps prevent scorching and crystallisation.

“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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