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Dessert

Coffee Caramels

A sweet candy made from sugar, milk, water, butter, glucose, and coffee essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Coffee Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a pan, combine sugar and water.

  2. Melt slowly, then boil until it reaches 260°F (127°C).

  3. Add milk and butter, then reboil until a drop in cold water snaps.

  4. Shortly before it is done, add enough cafolin essence to color and flavor.

Set and wrap

  1. Pour into a greased tin and mark into squares when slightly firm.

  2. Once hard, break or cut into pieces and wrap each in waxed 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Sugar
Forms the sweet base and, when cooked, the caramel that sets firm.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness and contributes to browning as the mixture cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture in the finished caramel.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the caramel smooth rather than grainy.

The step that matters

Reboiling after adding milk and butter. Milk proteins and fats can scorch on the pan bottom at high heat, and the mixture can boil over. Stirring and watching the cold-water test keeps the caramel from overcooking or turning bitter.

“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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