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Chocolate Caramels
Two cups molasses; two and onehalf tablespoons butter; one cup brown sugar and one-half cup milk. Put the butter into a saucepan, and, when melted, stir in sugar, milk and molasses. Stir until boiling point is reached when add three squares of chocolate which have been cut in small pieces and melted over hot water. Boil until the mixture forms a ball when tested
A straightforward molasses-and-chocolate caramel, though the printed text breaks off before the pouring and cutting. A candy thermometer settles the one question the recipe leaves open.
- The hinge: the ball test"Forms a ball when tested" means dropping a little syrup into cold water and gathering it between the fingers. For caramels that hold their shape but still chew, you want firm-ball stage, 245-248F; below about 240F they will slump, and much above 250F they get progressively harder and tougher.
- Three squares of chocolateBaking chocolate was sold in scored one-ounce squares, so this is 3 oz of unsweetened chocolate. Modern bars are often 4 oz total in four squares, so weigh rather than count. Melting it separately over hot water, as directed, keeps it from scorching on the hot pan bottom.
- MolassesTwo cups is a large proportion and drives the flavor. Use unsulphured light or dark molasses; blackstrap is bitter and was not what the book meant.
- Pan sizeSugar syrup with milk in it climbs alarmingly as it boils. Use a heavy saucepan of at least 3 quarts for what looks like a 4-cup quantity, and stir the bottom steadily once the chocolate is in, since cocoa solids catch and burn.
- The missing endingThe page stops mid-instruction. Standard practice for the period: pour at once into a buttered shallow pan, let stand until nearly cold and just firm, then mark into squares with an oiled knife and cut through when fully set.
- Pan and yieldA buttered 8-inch square pan gives caramels a bit over half an inch thick, roughly 60 to 64 pieces. Wrap them individually in waxed paper or they will fuse back together within a day.
- WeatherCaramels made on a humid day stay tacky. Cook to the upper end of the range, and store the wrapped pieces in a tin rather than the refrigerator.
Butterick's candy chapter belongs to the era when home candy-making moved from a specialist confectioner's craft to an ordinary domestic accomplishment, helped along by cheap refined sugar, reliable ranges and, crucially, packaged baking chocolate sold in pre-scored squares. Chocolate caramels of this type are molasses candies first and chocolate candies second, prized for the depth the molasses gave. The word caramel had by this point settled onto the chewy milk-and-sugar confection rather than simply meaning burnt sugar, and recipes like this one, with butter and milk cooked to the ball stage, are contemporaries of the wrapped caramels already being sold commercially. The finger test in cold water was usual in these books; the household candy thermometer was not yet standard equipment.