![]() ![]() All recipes use one or more of these avenues of control: There are four fundamental ways you can control the re-crystallization of sugar in a fudge recipe. The tiny crystals give fudge its characteristic texture. But the goal for a smooth fudge is to insure the re-emerging crystals are as small as possible. ![]() Left to its own devices, a super-concentrated cooling sugar solution will simply re-crystallize on its own. And by “sugar” here I’m talking about granulated white sugar: sucrose. So, the way a sugar solution behaves when it cools is tied to the concentration of sugar in solution and the concentration of sugar in solution is tied to the boiling temperature of the solution. Fudge candies would be at the lower-concentration end of the spectrum. It should be somewhat intuitive that candies made from concentrated sugar solutions are firmer or harder than candies made from less concentrated solutions. Heating and cooling sugar solutions is the basis for a variety of different sugar-based candies. Controlling the mechanics of the re-crystallization is the art of making fudge. When the sugar solution is cooled, the sugar can no longer stay fully dissolved in the liquid and re-crystallizes. The liquid needs to be heated to dissolve more sugar than would dissolve in the cooler liquid. A LOT of sugar.įudge is made by dissolving sugar in a hot liquid (usually milk or cream or condensed milk). Most people are familiar with the concept of salt raising the boiling point of water, although the effect is not nearly as pronounced as they might think – a tablespoon of salt in a few quarts of water will season pasta but it’s not going to raise the boiling point of the water in any meaningful way.īut with fudge, we’re not interested in salt, we’re interested in sugar. But once you dissolve a substance in water, the boiling point of the water will rise relative to the amount dissolved in the water. No matter how much heat you apply to water, the liquid water will never register a temperature greater than 212° F. That means that water cannot get any hotter than 212° F in a liquid state. Water boils at 212° F (at seal level…whatever). While it might seem like you’re cooking the sugar, what you’re really doing is just boiling away water. Fudge can be smooth (real good).Īt the core of every traditional fudge recipe lies the artful boiling and cooling of a sugar solution. The minor variations in those recipes actually cover the vast majority of approaches to fudge you find in modern recipes.įudge recipes should be evaluated by how they choose to deal with sugar more than they should be judged on their chocolate – again, fudge is a crystalline sugar candy and is (perhaps unconsciously) judged on its texture and mouthfeel based on the way sugar re-crystallizes. Then, at the dawn of the 20th century, three different recipes from three different women’s colleges (Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley) were published in a single cookbook (you can check them out in one place here). For what it’s worth, chocolate fudge seems to have acquired a name and made its appearance on the scene in the late 19th century but there were probably non-chocolate and chocolate precursors roaming the culinary wilderness before then (the non-chocolate version being something akin to vanilla fudge). The origins of fudge seem somewhat shrouded in mystery. In evolutionary terms, fudge is probably an odd descendant of both caramels and American pralines. As it turns out, the recipes are only superficially simple – the difficulty is tied to understanding how some of the ingredients behave and the code words used in the recipes that address those ingredients.įudge is a crystalline sugar confection – a type of candy made by carefully controlling the way sugar is dissolved and re-crystallized in the presence of butter and milk or cream. When I researched the issue, I was intrigued by the simplicity and odd variety in the recipes – recipes that were usually paired with staunch warnings about how fiendishly difficult fudge is to make. The holiday season is upon us and I decided that I wanted to try making some fudge for gifts. ![]()
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