I learned to make fudge when I was nine. I learned without a candy thermometer. I’ve made dozens of different recipes. Some were needlessly complicated, some had strange ingredients. Some set too fast and looked lumpy and odd. Most were smooth and lovely and wonderful.
The one thing they all had in common, though, was they all tasted yummy, that is, until last night.
I found a new recipe. The strange thing about it was, it used water, no milk, and only a tablespoon of butter and that being added while cooking.
It looked good while it was cooking. The soft ball, fished out of the ice water, tasted just like any other fudge tasted at that stage.
The first sign of trouble came while it was cooling. It was much stickier than any other I’d ever made. It didn’t lose its shine with beating either. Hmmm.
Well, spoon fudge isn’t soo bad…
Today, when I decided to try a bit, part of it was a thin liquid, the rest had the consistancy of very course, wet sand.
The flavor was…well indescribable. It was sweet… very sweet. Waaay sweet. Did I mention it was sweet?
The cocoa seems to have gone full circle. Instead of tasting like chocolate, there was just an undertone of raw cocoa powder.
All in all, it was awful. Very awful.
The moral of my story, is fudge needs milk and butter. :smack:
Sounds perfectly dreadful. There are few things worse than fudge that has that nasty, gritty quality. There are few things worse than icky, icky make-your-teeth-hurt overly sweet fudge. There’s NOTHING worse than fudge that has both those qualities.
None of us kids inherited the fudge gene from my grandmother, alas. Mmmmmm…that wonderful, silky smooth, melt-in-your-mouth fudge. I haven’t tasted anything like it in 30 years, at least.
What was the weather like when you made the fudge? One thing I’ve noticed is that when you make fudge when it’s raining outside, it just doesn’t hold together and you get the grainy textured stuff you described. Perhaps the increased humidity has something to do with it.
I think you might be thinking of divinity. I’ve made lots of very good fudge when it was raining. I live in Seattle. If I didn’t make fudge when it rains, I be a lot thinner.
Oslo Ostragoth, I have much better recipes. I do watch his show now and then. He’s pretty funny.
picunurse, I’m really sorry for what follows. I swear it’s not a personal attack and I do not fault your cooking skills. You just hit a personal nerve and after I typed out what follows I thought I should come back up here and make that part clear.
Let me guess: The recipe title/description contained a synonym of “low fat”.
I’m all for healthy eating but sweets are sweets and deserve nothing but the finest ingredients, simply because you’re not SUPPOSED to eat fudge by the pound or chocolate chip cookies by the dozen. Cookies need butter (not margarine) and/or lard (crisco); fudge needs whole (not skim) milk and butter (not margarine). I know that there are plenty of things that taste fine with other-than-full-fat substitutions but, for fuck’s sake, if I’m going to eat a heaping mound of molten chocolate lovers cake the absolute LAST thing I want squirted on top is a bunch of fat-free-fake whipped cream.
What’s that? You don’t want the calories? Then order the fresh fruit or - and I know it may be a foreign concept - DON’T EAT SO MUCH!
