SC - Oh Fudge! OOP

[Stefan li Rous]

Bonne said:
> Looking at it a few minutes later, I realized it was already crystalizing!  
> I stirred in what butter I could, and scaped the stuff from the saucepan to 
> the cooling tray. The rest of it, now hard chocolate candy, is currently 
> soaking out of the saucepan.

Oh oh. This makes me feel a bit better about a similar happening to me over
the past Yule holiday. I was trying to cook the Walnut Maple Brittle
that was mentioned on this list and that Brighid sent me by email. The
directions are:

> Mix together the sugar and maple syrup in a heavy saucepan on a 
> medium flame.  Heat until it reaches 280F (soft crack stage).  Add 
> walnuts, extract, and oil, and continue to cook, stirring 
> continuously, until it reaches 300F (hard crack stage).  Remove 
> from heat, and stir in baking soda.  When it foams up, pour onto 
> oiled marble board, etc.

I had bought a candy thermometer. It sound like what you are describing, a
big test tube with a thermometer inside and a clip, similar to a writing pen
clip on the side, presumably for clipping to the edge of the pot. Well, the
temperature was getting close to 280, about 265 or so, so I added in the
maple extract. I decided not to wait for exactly 280 because the way it was
climbing I figured it would overshoot before I got everything added.
Suddenly, and I mean very suddenly, what had been a pretty liquid mass
started crystalizing into thick clumps of crystals surrounded by some
liquid. And the temperature had dropped into the 240s. I kept heating it
but it didn't seem to want to liquify again. I was afraid it might burn,
so added a substatial amount of maple syrup which made it more liquid but
with lots of crystals floating in it. I cooked this for a while longer,
added the walnuts and the baking soda and spread the crumbly paste in
the oiled cake pan.

It ended up being crumbly but could be cut into blocks and it tasted good.
It just didn't end up looking like peanut brittle, which is what I was 
expecting. ie: the surface was crumbling/rough, not smooth, glasslike.

Maybe clipping the thermometer to the side of the pan puts it in a cool spot?
Or maybe 280 degrees is correct for pure sugar but not a sugar/maple syrup
mixture?
 
> I need ideas for what to do with this stuff I have.  It's chocolate sugar.  
> Sugar crystals the size of normal sugar crystals, but they are chocolate.  A 
> few lumps that are larger are easily crushed.  Taste yum, but a bit messy.  
> Off hand, I can imagine it might flavor hot cocoa nicely.  Vanilla ice cream 
> is the traditional repository of failed fudge that refuses to crystalize - 
> ta-da, it's fudge sauce.  But I guess these crystals can be sprinkled over 
> the ice cream.
> 
> Any other ideas?

Anyway, maybe you could heat the crystals up with more chocolate? syrup?
and do something similar to what I did.
 
> I'm off to buy a candy thermometer.  I hope there is such a thing as an 
> instant read version.  I've broken more than one of that kind with the 
> regular thermometer in a test tube.

I saw an instant read digital thermometer in the store for ovens. I
think 
the end was meant to stick into food and then it had a long cord on it so
the thermometer itself could sit on top of the counter or range. It
was $18 which was why I bought the grill top thermometer instead.

Or is the range on such an oven thermometer likely to be too wide for
candy 
use? Since it was a digital thermometer, it's not like a smaller range
would give you a easier to see scale.

- -- 
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****