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Chocolate Caeamels

A chewy chocolate caramel candy made with sugar, molasses, milk, butter, and chocolate.

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 Caeamels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine sugar, molasses, milk, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Cook until the mixture thickens and will stiffen in water.

  4. If doubling the recipe, add chocolate towards the end of cooking.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into flat buttered pans to a thickness of ½ inch.

  2. Let cool.

  3. 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. Sugar + molassestop 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. Butter + chocolatetop 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

Sugar
Sweetens the caramel and, as it cooks and concentrates, helps it set firm.
Molasses
Adds deep flavor and moisture, keeping the caramels soft and chewy.
Milk
Adds moisture and dairy richness, and helps the mixture brown as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and rich flavor.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and richness; when doubling, it goes in late in cooking.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens and will stiffen in water. As the mixture boils, water evaporates and sugar concentration rises, which determines firmness once cooled. Stopping early leaves caramels soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes them hard and brittle.

“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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