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Chocolate Caramels
Miss E. Winstanley.
One cup of grated chocolate, three cups of sugar, one cup of molasses, one cup of milk, and a small piece of butter. Boil for about twenty minutes, stirring all the time; pour into a buttered pan; when nearly cold mark off in small squares.
A straightforward nineteenth-century milk caramel with chocolate worked in. The one thing the recipe leaves out is the only thing that determines success: the temperature the syrup reaches before it comes off the heat.
- Cook to a temperature, not a clockTwenty minutes is whatever the writer's stove happened to do. Boil to 245-250F (firm-ball) for caramels that hold a square and still yield to the tooth; below about 240F they will not set, and taken much higher they turn hard and tough.
- Grated chocolateThis means unsweetened block chocolate, grated so that it would disperse readily in the syrup. One cup grated is somewhere in the region of 3 to 4 oz by weight, depending how loosely it sits. Chopped unsweetened baking chocolate does the same job; cocoa powder does not, as it lacks the cocoa butter.
- A small piece of butterRead this as about 1 tablespoon. It is there for mouthfeel and to keep the mass from sticking, not for structure, so precision is not critical.
- MolassesUse unsulphured cooking molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and will fight the chocolate. Its invert sugar is what keeps the caramel from turning grainy, so do not swap it out for more white sugar.
- Stirring all the time is literalMilk solids, molasses and chocolate all scorch readily. Use a heavy pan at least three times the depth of the ingredients, stir to the corners, and keep the heat moderate rather than fierce.
- The panAn 8-inch square pan, buttered, gives a slab something over half an inch thick. Line it with parchment as well if you want to lift the slab out whole for cutting.
- Marking offScore while the slab is still warm and pliable, then cut through when fully cool. A long knife wiped between cuts works better than sawing. Wrap the pieces in waxed paper or they will stick together.
- YieldAround 2 lb of candy; an 8-inch pan cut into one-inch squares gives about 64 pieces.
Caramels of this type belong to the great age of North American home candy-making, when refined sugar, canned and fresh milk, and eating chocolate were all in domestic use in the second half of the nineteenth century. Chocolate was still sold in unsweetened cakes to be grated, and many recipes of the period specify "grated chocolate" as a measure of volume rather than weight. The Home Cook Book, compiled in the 1870s from contributions by named ladies of Toronto and elsewhere, is typical in printing such confections alongside everyday cookery; making sweets at home was a normal domestic accomplishment rather than a specialist craft.