Posted by cynic (My Page) on
Tue, Dec 20, 11 at 0:11

fudge (fÃÂj) Noun: A soft candy made from sugar, butter, and milk or cream

Sounds about right to me.

Jim, there are many variations of fudge. I prefer a cooked fudge using the "softball stage" to determine when it has cooked enough. And I like without or without chocolate versions. And if I am going to add chocolate, I want chocolate not cocoa. My mom made a chocolate version using cocoa, but I much prefer melted chocolate over cocoa.

Although I do not make the marshmallow quick version of fudge, I sure wouldn't turn down a piece if someone offered it too me.

The only fudge I do not like is the gritty sugary fudge. I want my fudge rich and creamy.

Ann

I agree with the "rich and creamy". How it gets there does not matter to me one whit. However, for me it must be chocolate or I will happily pass as I mentioned on the other thread.

You should all be thrilled that I will never wrestle you for the last piece of maple/walnut/vanilla/penuche whatever! LOLOLOL!

Alexa

I did a bunch of googling last night, and most of what I found supports Jim's idea of bringing it to softball stage and then beating it. Here is a definition from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, followed but a quote from an article in "The Nibble."

fudge, creamy candy made with butter, sugar, milk, and usually chocolate, cooked together and beaten to a soft, smooth texture. Fudge may be thought of as having a consistency harder than that of fondant and softer than that of hard chocolate. According to most recipes, the ingredients of fudge are cooked to what is termed in kitchen parlance the soft ball stage, that point between 234� and 240� F (112� and 115� C) at which a small ball of the candy dropped in ice water neither disintegrates nor flattens when picked up with the fingers. Butter and vanilla are added as the candy cools, then the mass is beaten until creamy, poured into a pan, and cut into squares. Often sour cream is substituted for milk and butter, and nut meats or raisins may be stirred into the fudge.

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The original fudge recipes were famously delicate: Precise measurements, cooking time and constant stirring were crucial for perfect fudge. The recipe looks simple�heat a mixture of sugar, butter and milk or cream to the soft-ball stage (224�-238�F), then beat it to a smooth, creamy consistency while it cools. But it is easy to undercook or overcook a batch (not every home cook had�or has�a candy thermometer) and to end up with "crystallized" fudge through insufficient stirring.

Chocolaty, peanut buttery or mapley squares of pure sugar cooked with cream or it's economical equivalent served often at Christmas or in Outlet Malls in the Fudgery all the time at astronomical prices.

Well....fudge to me is a chocolate concoction of cream butter sugar and very expensive chocolate....cooked to the point where I need to test it and quickly becoming over cooked while I try to determine if it's at the soft ball stage....then beaten until my arm is about to fall off and served up in all it's sugary crunchiness...only to be broken up in Feburary and put on top of ice cream in a desparate moment.
I can't make decent fudge!!

My mom made the cocoa fudge when I was growing up and i loved it (still do). I prefer the slightly gritty, sugary kind over the creamy kind any day - just like mom used to make. The kind made from melted choc chips just tastes like melted choc chips to me. the eye (or tongue) of the beholder, I guess.

You are so right Olychick. Each to their own taste. My mom made hers with cocoa and it was gritty and sugary because it was overcooked. My grandmother on the other hand could make the same fudge using cocoa and hers would be smooth and creamy.

Even fudge made with chocolate chips can turn out gritty and sugary if the fudge is over cooked.

Ann

Yep, my mom made the cocoa fudge, and it was always creamy and smooth. She never let the fact there were five little kids waiting impatiently to fight over the spoon and scrape out the pan affect her process.

We drooled over every little, soft glob of fudge as she tested in cold water, we begged for the saucer when she did a test beating. Though we watched this many times over during our childhood, neither of my two sisters or I can make it as smooth as consistently as mom did.

We try, and sometimes we are successful, but we don't get as much practice as mom did, because none of us has five kids to help eat it up, and none of us can resist when it is in the house. It must be scarfed down while it is fresh, don't you know....

For me, that is fudge. That other rich, creamy stuff may be called fudge, and it is tasty, but not nearly as wonderful as a well turned out batch of good old cocoa fudge.

I'll agree with the definitions of fudge as they have been listed here. For me, though, my favorite is the gritty, sugary kind made from confectioner's sugar, cocoa, butter, milk, a little salt and a little vanilla. It's a recipe that was once on the side of the Domino Powdered Sugar box (back in the 50s and 60s) and has been made by somebody in my family for years since.

One thing about the recipe -- if we get the recipe wrong, we have what we call "Magic Fudge". The recipe does not harden. When you take a piece out of the pan, the gooey mess fills the empty slot slowly. The next person comes to get a piece from the pan and finds that it's a full pan again. Voila....magic fudge.

Donna

Fudge is what you find the best of on the boardwalk of Ocean City, NJ!! Though I like chocolate varieties, favorite is vanilla. One that tastes more of butter than vanilla.

I grew up with maple and chocolate fudge which was a gritty sugary type of fudge. It was my Dad's recipe going back to the 1930's. To me THAT was fudge. It was only later that I had the creamy type. I do not like the ones made with condensed milk. It just doesn't have the texture or taste that to me means fudge. Everyone has their preferences and their opinion.
Clare

Fudge is what the tourists buy on Mackinac Island and in Frankenmuth at the Christmas store, and it's why tourists are called "fudgies". (grin)

to me "real" fudge is milk, sugar and butter, cooked to a soft ball stage and beanten until lthick. Grandma used to make a jack Frost fudge with ONLY cane sugar and she added maraschino cherries sometimes. Sometimes it set up so quickly that she'd knock it out of the pan in chunks, that's when I liked it the best. My very favorite, though, is Ann T's maple walnut, which I never make because I eat far too much of it when I do.

My kids like the "Fantasy Fudge" that's been around on the marshmallow cream jar forever. It was originally known as Mamie Eisenhower's Fudge, so it's been around for a long time. It's still brought to soft ball stage and beaten, though.

The melted chips and condensed milk version isn't fudge to me, as I mentioned, it's more like truffles in texture and it's rick and sweet. Now, I wouldn't turn it down, nor would any small child I know, but to me it's not really fudge.

And now, of course, I'll have to go home and check Larousse's Gastronomique and see what their definition of fudge is.

Annie

I make fantasy fudge, in the microwave no less. I'd rather make "artificially concocted", but in my hands, fudge than to spend loads of time and have it not turn out right (smooth and creamy every time!). I care not from which process it came if someone else makes it. I prefer it be refrigerated when I eat it though; my own special quirk.

Chocolate is mmm mmm good, but I will also gladly eat a peanut butter version, if it's good. I am not wild about white chocolate fudge with walnuts, for instance. It's tasty to others, but not to me.

Annie I agree with you that the fudge made by just melting chocolate chips in condensed milk is not real "fudge" by my definition. Basically the same as the uncooked fudge using marshmallows or marshmallow creme.

But the optional version I offer of cooked fudge substituting condensed milk for the cream and sugar is "fudge" by my definition. It is almost identical to my regular Maple Cream fudge, also cooked to the softball stage. But again, everyone has their own preferences and standards. I would be happy to eat any fudge. Although my least favourite is the cooked sugary gritty style that my mother cooked. Occasionally her fudge did turn out smooth and creamy, but the norm was overcooked passed the softball stage.

I have heavy cream and a new jug of real maple syrup on hand. I just might have to satisfy the craving created by this thread and make a batch of fudge today.

Ann

My apologies to Ann and others whose fudge cravings may have been set off by this thread. :-) I may have to apologize to myself as well. I'm thinking about the fudge I saw in my wonderful local candy store while shopping for a gifts there. I resisted then but I'm not sure I can get through the day without going back for a nice chunk of fudge.

Two special characteristics of fudge have been mentioned by more than one of us. First is that fudge is typically a homemade product with fond memories attached.

Second, when not homemade, it is often attached to memories of vacation spots -- usually of seaside or lakefront places such as Ocean City, Mackinac Island or Provincetown, where it is cooked in a huge kettle using something like a canoe paddle to stir it and a small shovel to work it as it cools. "Fudgie" is a new one to me (thanks Annie), although I now know I have been a fudgie myself at times.

So far as a definition goes, it is the old fashioned, sugary type, boiled to the right stage and beaten as it cools which I recognize as fudge. Apparently there are short-cut or fail-safe versions I wasn't aware of which also go by the name fudge. Not having made or eaten those I can't say how closely they resemble the old fashioned kind.

Jim

In my candy cookbooks there are recipes for all kinds of fudge: Brown Sugar, Butter Pecan, Butterscotch, Cherry and Nut, Crock-pot, Caramel, Coconut, Coffee, Date Nut, French Cream Almondine, Golden Mexican Orange, Honey, Mamie Eisenhower (???), Marshmallow Cream, Peppermint, Persimmon, Pineapple, Peanut Butter, Three Layered, White, and 25 different Chocolate fudge recipes.

So I think we can agree that fudge is whatever you like and made however you like it. There is no one kind fits all.
Clare

Agreed, there are a gazillion kinds of 'fudge'.

But to me, 'REAL' fudge is the old fashioned kind.
Sugar, cream, butter and cocoa,
cooked to an exact point,
Beaten like crazy,
And poured into a pan.
Lots of nuts (preferably walnuts)
for a really special occasion batch.

It is a deep, rich cocoa flavor,
Firm textured, creamy,
Yet with a certain 'graininess'
that is hard to define.
When made with chocolate,
It just tastes like,
well, like chocolate.
Has to be cocoa to have the true fudge flavor.

As for all the other flavors,
Call then what you will,
But to me, they aren't fudge.

And that was the OP's question, I believe.

This has been an interesting thread to read!
Thanks for starting it, Jim

Rusty

So basically the answer to the OP's question is as Clare "Aptosca" said. "So I think we can agree that fudge is whatever you like and made however you like it. There is no one kind fits all".....Clare. Works for me.

I don't know whether to thank you Jim or not....since I now have a tray of caramel cooling.

Ann

For me fudge is the almost 2 pounds of heavy, sweet deliciousness that showed in my mailbox this afternoon, a present from a colleague.

I asked her about her method in general terms, she said she brings it to 224 (she's in CO, high altitude) but doesn't do all the beating. I'm still fine calling it fudge! ;)

"... I now have a tray of caramel cooling."

And I went by the candy store store and spent $5.00 on fudge. It was really tough to resist eating it all at once.

"...fudge is whatever you like and made however you like it."

The trouble with that is it leaves the word without a meaning. For example, if I want to call jelly beans fudge, then jelly beans are fudge. I don't think we can agree with that.

Please note that I am not trying to make a case for what fudge is BEST. I am trying to determine what fudge IS. I won't argue about what you like.

Jim

Jim - There probably is fudge out there with jelly beans in it. Is that fudge? Just messing with your head. LOL
Clare

Jim, we have a candy store downtown right next to the drawbridge. They make wonderful old-fashioned fudge with cocoa. It's a bit grainy, firm, with or without walnuts, & it's not just the tourists that line up. This time of year you can get caught up on all the town news standing in line. Fudge is one of those things that, to me, is best purchased from a good candy maker. There's something nostaligic about carrying that little box home tied with a ribbon. We always buy little mini-boxes with 2 pieces per box & one box per person snuggled into the branches of our Christmas tree. Tradition. Christmas is the only time of year we eat fudge & just those 2 pieces.

/tricia

"----The trouble with that is it leaves the word without a meaning. For example, if I want to call jelly beans fudge, then jelly beans are fudge. I don't think we can agree with that. ---"

I totally agree. As cooking is getting more popular and techniques more complicated there should be more exact definition of food terms.

Fudge should be made the old fudge way, all the others should just be called candies.

However, the only exception perhaps should be "pizza". You are allowed to fudge it anyway you want in the making of a pizza. :-)

dcarch

The Beaver House Fudge Shoppe is less than 200 feet from where I work. They have been around for a long time and people come from all over to buy their fudge. Like the Fudge Shoppes in Upper Michigan and other tourist areas the Beaver House Fudge shoppe has just about every type of fudge imaginable. I think they would be very surprised to know that some think that fudge is only cream, sugar, butter and cocoa.

Thankfully I prefer my own fudge so I'm not tempted by their variety of fudge.

Jim, I hope you enjoyed your fudge. If you were closer I would have shared my caramels.

I always thought that real fudge with the sugary hard type like my Mom always used to make. This was what she tried to achieve but sometimes I can remember it didn't turn out and it was chewy and not hard and sugary...it was considered a "flop" for her but I liked it better...HA! I never ate her sugary/hard fudge because to me it didn't taste good at all. So my favorite fudge is that Carnation Christmas fudge recipe..YUM YUM!!!!

Ann, those caramels look devine! I really didn't have much time to do candies and cookies before Christmas because we are going out of town this weekend, but my 13 year old granddaughter will be staying with us the whole week after Christmas. So we will be doing a lot of baking then!

As for the fudge question, I usually don't make it because I would eat the whole batch. But when I do, it is a recipe with sweetened condensed milk. I have never tried making it with the chocolate flavored sweetened condensed milk though. Hmmmmm, now that got me thinking to give that a try!

"...sometimes I can remember it didn't turn out and it was chewy and not hard and sugary...it was considered a "flop" for her but I liked it better...HA!"

I have a dim memory from long ago that, if you did something wrong, it could result in taffy, not fudge. Do you suppose that is what happened? Taffy is chewy.

Now I'm starting to think of all the kinds of homemade candies -- taffy, caramel, fudge, peanut brittle, etc. How many are there?

Jim

"Jim, I hope you enjoyed your fudge. If you were closer I would have shared my caramels."

Yes, the fudge was delicious, although much softer than I am accustomed to. It was packed with a little plastic knife.

Your photo is so good it looks as if I could reach out and take a caramel. Unfortunately, that doesn't work. I will have to enjoy them vicariously.

Jim