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Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate caramels made with brown sugar, chocolate, sweet cream, coconut butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a china saucepan, combine brown sugar, shaved chocolate, sweet cream, coconut butter, and vanilla.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

Set and cut

  1. Pour into buttered dishes to cool.

  2. Once cooled, cut into sections.

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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Chocolate + coconuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Brown sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and the caramel flavor as it cooks.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and richness to the caramel.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and fat, giving the caramel a softer, creamier texture.
Coconut butter
Adds fat for a smooth, tender texture and a coconut aroma.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens. Sugar must reach the right concentration to set firm once cooled. Stop too early and the caramels stay soft and sticky; cook too long and they turn hard and brittle.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Coconutthe original
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

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