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Dessert

Raspberry Caramels

A sweet candy made by cooking sugar, water, glucose, cream, butter, and raspberry flavoring until it hardens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and cherry work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 192 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water, and stir until dissolved.

  2. Add the glucose and boil until it reaches the ball stage.

  3. Stir in the cream and butter in small pieces, then boil until the syrup reaches the crack stage.

  4. Remove the saucepan and place it in a bowl of cold water to stop cooking.

  5. Add coloring and flavor to taste.

Set and finish

  1. Pour the mixture onto an oiled slab or into an oiled tin.

  2. Once cool, 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. Raspberry + cherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together192 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Butter + creamtop 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. Butter + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

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

  5. Cream + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 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

Granulated sugar
Forms the bulk of the candy and, once cooked, sets it firm and chewy.
Glucose
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the caramel smooth rather than grainy.
Cream
Adds fat and milk solids that soften the texture and give a richer, creamier bite.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the caramel tender and rounds out its flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling to the crack stage. The syrup must reach the crack stage to set firm once cooled. Stopping early leaves soft, sticky caramels, while overcooking makes them hard and brittle. Removing the pan from heat promptly prevents further cooking.

Swap the cherry

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

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

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