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Dessert

Chocolate Caramels

Chocolate Caramels are a sweet treat made by boiling sugar, milk, molasses, and chocolate until thick, then cooling and cutting into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Caramels

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Melt the chocolate in a small amount of water.

  2. Add the sugar, milk, and molasses to the melted chocolate.

  3. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes, or until it becomes very thick.

Set and cut

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered pans.

  2. Allow to cool.

  3. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Chocolate + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, as it concentrates, the body that makes the caramel firm when cooled.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness, and its milk solids contribute to a smooth, chewy texture.
Molasses
Adds deep flavour, dark colour and moisture, keeping the caramels soft.
Chocolate
Adds rich chocolate flavour and a darker colour to the caramel.

The step that matters

Boiling until very thick. As the mixture boils, water evaporates and the sugar concentrates. Stopping too early leaves the caramel soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and brittle once it cools.

“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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