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Chocolate Caramels (Boil slowly together one pound)
Boil slowly together one pound of brown sugar, onehalf cupful of molasses, one-quarter of a pound of grated chocolate, one-half cupful of cream and one tablespoonful of butter until it is like very thick molasses. Take from the fire, add one-half teaspoonful of vanilla and pour into straight-sided buttered pans, marking in squares when partly cold.
A straightforward brown-sugar caramel with chocolate worked in. The only real difficulty is judging the finish, which the original leaves to the eye.
- Use a thermometer"Like very thick molasses" is usually read as around the firm-ball stage, roughly 245-250F, the range normally given for chewy caramels. Below that the squares slump and stick; carried much higher they set progressively firmer and less chewy.
- Grated chocolateThis means unsweetened block chocolate, the standard baking chocolate of the period. Four ounces of unsweetened bar chocolate, chopped fine, is the equivalent; chocolate chips and eating chocolate carry added sugar and lecithin and will throw the balance off.
- CreamCream of this period varied considerably in richness and the recipe does not specify which. Heavy cream is the safer choice here, since the fat helps keep the caramel smooth.
- Slowly means slowlyMilk solids and molasses both scorch readily. Keep the heat moderate and stir often with a wooden spoon, scraping the corners of the pan, or the batch will taste burnt long before it reaches temperature.
- Sugar quantityOne pound of brown sugar is about 2 1/4 packed cups. Light brown gives a cleaner caramel flavor; dark brown pushes it toward molasses, of which there is already half a cup.
- The pan"Straight-sided buttered pans" means the caramel should set in an even slab so the squares cut true. An 8-inch square buttered pan gives a slab roughly half an inch thick.
- Marking in squaresScore the surface while the caramel is still warm and pliable, then cut through once it is fully cold. Cutting cold caramel that was never scored tends to crack it.
- Yield and keepingRoughly one and a half pounds, or about sixty-four one-inch pieces. Wrap each in waxed paper; unwrapped caramels weep and fuse in a day or two.
Caramels of this kind belong to the great age of American home candy making, when a heavy saucepan and a bowl of cold water for testing sugar were all a household needed to produce confections that had previously come from a confectioner's shop. Brown sugar and molasses were cheap and universal in American kitchens, while chocolate was still bought as an unsweetened cake to be grated by hand, which is why so many recipes of the period specify "grated chocolate" by weight. Cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s regularly gave over a full chapter to candy, partly because homemade sweets were a staple of church socials, holiday boxes and children's parties, and partly because commercial confectionery had a poor reputation for adulteration. Making it yourself was as much a matter of trust as of thrift.