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Dessert

Strawberry Caramels

A confection of sugar, honey, butter, cream, water, strawberry essence, and coloring, set into squares.

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 saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Stir until dissolved.

  2. Add the honey, cream, and butter. Boil the mixture until it reaches the 'crack' stage.

  3. Stir in the strawberry essence and cherry-red coloring.

Set and cut

  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.

Wrap

  1. 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

Lump sugar
Forms the bulk of the caramel and, when boiled, sets into a firm, chewy texture.
Honey
Adds sweetness and helps keep the caramel soft and less grainy as it cools.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel in the finished caramel.
Cream
Adds milk fat and moisture, giving the caramel a softer, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Boiling to the 'crack' stage. Boiling the mixture to the right temperature controls how firm the caramel sets. Too little boiling leaves it sticky, while too much makes it hard and brittle.

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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