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Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate caramels made by boiling chocolate, sugar, molasses, milk, cream, and butter until thick, then cooled and broken into pieces.

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 ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, combine chocolate, sugar, molasses, milk, cream (if using), and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture longer than you would for molasses candy.

Set and cut

  1. When nearly cold, spread the mixture over buttered tins.

  2. Use the back of a knife to break the caramels 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 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

Chocolate
Adds deep flavour and colour, and firms the caramel as it sets.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when cooked, the body and chewiness of the caramel.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, a rich flavour and extra moisture to the caramel.
Milk
Adds moisture and dairy richness, softening the texture of the set caramel.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and a richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture longer than you would for molasses candy. Caramel relies on cooking off water and reaching a higher sugar concentration so it sets firm rather than sticky. Stopping early leaves a soft, tacky result that will not hold its shape when cut.

“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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