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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate Caramels are a sweet treat made from molasses, sugar, chocolate, vanilla, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. In a saucepan, combine molasses, sugar, and chocolate.

  2. Boil the mixture until it hardens.

  3. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and stir until cool.

Set and cut

  1. Pour into buttered tins.

  2. When nearly cool, cut into squares, then roll in wax paper once hard.

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. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Molasses
Provides the dark color, deep flavor, and chewy body of the caramel.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps it set firm as it cooks and cools.
Chocolate
Adds richness and a cocoa flavor to the caramel.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, smoother texture and keeps the caramels from sticking to the tins.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it hardens. Sugar and molasses set firm only once enough water has boiled off and the mixture reaches a high enough temperature. Stopping early leaves a soft, sticky caramel, while cooking too long makes it brittle.

“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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