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Dessert

Sour Cream Caramels

A candy made from sour cream, sugar, chocolate, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla 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 ↓

Sour Cream Caramels

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Stir together sour cream, sugar, and grated chocolate until the sugar is nearly dissolved.

  2. Cook over moderate heat, stirring gently once or twice to prevent scorching.

  3. When a drop of syrup in ice water hardens quickly, add vanilla.

Pour and cut

  1. Pour the candy carefully into a buttered pan.

  2. When firm but not hard, remove from the pan and cut into small squares.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cream + chocolatetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

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

Sour cream
Adds moisture and a tangy note, and makes the caramel softer and creamier.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and forms the candy's structure as the syrup cooks and sets.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor, color, and fat that makes the candy rich.

The step that matters

Cooking to the right stage. The candy's firmness depends on how far the sugar syrup has cooked. Testing a drop in ice water shows when it hardens quickly. Cooking too little leaves the candy soft, while cooking too long makes it hard and 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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