[Sca-cooks] Candy question, mostly...

[Lorenz Wieland]

Phlip wrote:

>Yeah- that's why my initial thought as far as making the fudge a bit harder,
>is to let it cook a bit beyond the soft ball stage- but, just as with steel,
>where different material content, such as iron, carbon, and inclusions may
>change the characteristics of the final product, I thought I'd phrase my
>question as I did to see if, perhaps, a bit more or less of sugar, cocoa,
>butter, vanilla, or whatever might make a difference in the solidity of the
>final candy.
>  
>
Interesting question.  I suspect only the butter has any real chance of 
affecting the final texture.  I'm guessing that at the temperatures 
involved the cocoa and vanilla will be fairly passive passengers and not 
do much to the structure of the fudge.  Even the butter is suspect, 
since I've seen lots of different variations on the dairy fat theme in 
fudge recipes, and these don't seem to result in noticeably different 
textures when cooked in a consistent manner.

Personally, I'd play around with the cooling stage before tinkering with 
ingredient proportions.  Maybe try a more rapid initial cooling by 
stirring the batter or using a marble slab.  I'm way out on a limb here, 
though, and am hoping one of our resident patissiers will come along and 
rescue us both.

Finally, if your problem is that the fudge is too soft at room 
temperature, an obvious suggestion is to not serve fudge at room 
temperature :)  On the rare occasion I indulge in chocolate goodness, I 
prefer it somewhere near 40-50F.

-Lorenz