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Dessert

Strawberry Caramels

A sweet candy made by cooking sugar, honey, butter, cream, and strawberry essence until the crack stage, then setting and cutting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Strawberry and cherry work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 217 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

Strawberry Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a copper sugar boiler or stewpan, combine the sugar and water.

  2. Heat until the sugar is dissolved, then stir in the honey, cream, and butter.

  3. Boil the mixture until it reaches the 'crack' stage.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the strawberry essence and coloring.

Set, cut and wrap

  1. Pour the mixture onto an oiled slab and let it set.

  2. Once set, cut into small squares using a caramel cutter or a buttered knife.

  3. Wrap each caramel in wax paper.

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. Strawberry + cherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Honey + strawberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together354 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Honey + cherrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and the firm body of the caramel as its water evaporates during cooking.
Honey
Adds moisture and sweetness and helps keep the caramel from crystallising.
Cream
Adds milk fat that softens the set and gives a smoother, chewier bite.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, less brittle texture.

The step that matters

Boil to the crack stage. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises, so the final temperature decides whether the caramel is chewy or brittle. Undercooking leaves it sticky and soft, while overcooking makes it hard or burnt.

Swap the cherry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, honey, butter, cream, strawberry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Bananafits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, honey, butter, cream, strawberry. 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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