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Rich Chocolate Caramels
2 tablespoons butter 1 cup molasses 1/2 cup milk 4 squares chocolate 1/2 cup sugar 1 cup walnut meats, broken in pieces 2 teaspoons vanilla Put butter in saucepan and when melted add milk, sugar and molasses. When boiling-point is reached add chocolate, and cook until brittle when tried in cold water, stirring occasionally to prevent mixture from adhering to pan. Remove from fire, beat three minutes, add nut meats and vanilla, and turn into a buttered pan. When cold cut in squares and wrap in paraffine paper.
A molasses-based chocolate caramel of the sort sold by weight in confectioners' shops. The whole outcome rests on how far the syrup is cooked, and the original wording points higher than most people expect from a caramel.
- The cold-water test, translated"Brittle when tried in cold water" is the hard-crack stage, roughly 300-310F on a candy thermometer: a drizzle into ice water sets into threads that snap rather than bend. Cooked to that point these are firm, toffee-like caramels; if you want the chewy sort, stop at firm-ball, about 245-248F, and expect a softer square that needs colder storage.
- Squares of chocolateA "square" is one ounce, so four squares is 4 oz. The book means plain unsweetened chocolate, not modern sweet baking bars; unsweetened keeps the balance right against a full cup of molasses.
- Molasses choiceUnsulphured light or medium molasses suits this best. Blackstrap is much more bitter and will dominate the chocolate.
- Pan and beatingA heavy-bottomed pan of at least 3-quart capacity: the milk and molasses foam up sharply. The three minutes of beating after it comes off the heat cools and blends the mixture before the nuts and vanilla go in, and may give the finished candy a more opaque body.
- Paraffine paperThat is waxed paper. Wrapping each square individually is not decorative fussiness; molasses candy draws moisture from the air and the pieces will fuse into one block if left loose.
- Pan size and yieldAn 8-inch square pan, well buttered, gives a depth of about half an inch. Expect roughly 1 1/4 lb of candy, or about sixty-four 1-inch squares.
- CuttingThe recipe says to cut when cold. Scoring the surface with a buttered knife while the slab is still slightly warm can make that easier, since candy boiled to this stage tends to crack rather than slice.
Molasses was a cheap and common sweetener in nineteenth-century American kitchens, and molasses-based candies were widely made at home. Cookery writers of the period grouped sugar-boiling work together, since the same cold-water tests governed frostings, fudges and caramels alike, and a cook who could read the thread and ball stages could move between them. Wrapping in waxed paper echoes the commercial candy trade, in which individually wrapped caramels had become a familiar penny item by the turn of the century.