Unflavored fudge base?

[jrshaul]

Is there a "fudge base" that people use when making fudge with non-dairy flavors? The commercial stuff seems to use a shared base with various flavorings; it'd be awful convenient for, say, a ginger fudge.

[Chocolot]

I think there is a base that people who own a "fudge kettle" buy and do their own add-ins.  It is probably specific to their brand of kettle.

[Lisa Shock]

I haven't seen one, but you could easily develop something from one of the white chocolate formulas out there.

[pastrygirl]

51 minutes ago, Chocolot said:

I think there is a base that people who own a "fudge kettle" buy and do their own add-ins.  It is probably specific to their brand of kettle.

 

Wow, so not everyone cooks up a batch of sugar then works it on a marble table?  I had no idea you could make fudge with bags of powders!

https://www.calicocottage.com/make-kettle-fudge/how-to/how-to-make-fudge

 

Anyway, I'd say the "base" of fudge is sugar   And it usually has some milk and/or butter, did you (OP) mean non-chocolate flavors? 

[jrshaul]

Here's a few notes from my attempt to find a fudge base:
 

1. Penuche  - produced by heating 400g white sugar, 200g brown sugar, 3g salt, and 250ml milk to ~113C, allowing to cool to 160F before adding 45g butter and 1t vanilla and cooling to 110F before beating  - is a chocolate-less reasonable starting point. The milk seems to brown pretty heavily, though - you get visible milk solids as it cooks, though it mixes in nicely later.
2. My half-assed minimalist coconut fudge (1 can coconut milk, 600g sugar, 100g corn syrup, cook whole mess to 115C before cooling and beating) has a decent consistency, but it's too sweet. I think it'd benefit from using whole coconut instead - something to bulk out the fudge without adding sugar. Also, it mysteriously turned to goo later; presumably, it inverted, although this may just be a result of storing in the fridge. Any advice on this one?
3. Pumpkin fudge (600g sugar + 125g pumpkin puree + 1t pumpkin spice + 1/4t salt + 45g corn syrup to 113c, add stick of butter and 1t vanilla while cooling, beat at 110c) works really surprisingly well. I'm not sure if it's the pile of starch or what, but the consistency is very good. Tastes decent, too - might just cook it to just past boiling, add butter, and use it as the dehydrated base of some sort of frosting. (Maybe add meringue or cream cheese?) I think this is the base of future fudge efforts - but it needs some significant added solids, as is evidenced by the superior texture over the coconut fudge.

 

Anyone know where to get cheap frozen coconut?

On 9/12/2018 at 11:08 PM, Chocolot said:

I think there is a base that people who own a "fudge kettle" buy and do their own add-ins.  It is probably specific to their brand of kettle.

I was kind of hoping for the specifics on these. We're all doing the "modernist" thing around here; may as well see what tricks mass-produced junk can teach us.

 

 

On 9/13/2018 at 12:03 AM, pastrygirl said:

 

Wow, so not everyone cooks up a batch of sugar then works it on a marble table?  I had no idea you could make fudge with bags of powders!

https://www.calicocottage.com/make-kettle-fudge/how-to/how-to-make-fudge

 

Anyway, I'd say the "base" of fudge is sugar   And it usually has some milk and/or butter, did you (OP) mean non-chocolate flavors? 

Cannot tell if sarcastic or or just not familiar with Kilwin's terrible candy.

I would like to do some non-chocolate flavors, hence the curiosity.
 

On 9/12/2018 at 11:53 PM, Lisa Shock said:

I haven't seen one, but you could easily develop something from one of the white chocolate formulas out there.

White chocolate is spendy, and you get that odd off note from the cocoa butter. Also, I'm not a big fan of chocolate-heavy fudge in general - it's either the wretched evaporated milk "millionaire fudge" or it goes weird when you add the chocolate to the sugar base. Might just need a better recipe.

[Kerry Beal]

Since you can use fondant (the non cake topping kind) to set fudge without beating it - I wonder if you could use fondant sugar in it's place to set the fudge. 

[Chester86]

On 9/13/2018 at 12:03 AM, pastrygirl said:

 

Wow, so not everyone cooks up a batch of sugar then works it on a marble table?  I had no idea you could make fudge with bags of powders!

https://www.calicocottage.com/make-kettle-fudge/how-to/how-to-make-fudge

 

Anyway, I'd say the "base" of fudge is sugar   And it usually has some milk and/or butter, did you (OP) mean non-chocolate flavors? 

Shut the front door!!! There is this lady that travels around to local shows selling her homemade fudge! Told me she had a fudge kettle and made each batch from scratch! But she had all these different flavors! I was like “how in the world does she do this??!” 

As I’ve made fudge before.... and it didn’t look anything like her super creamy, smooth and 50 flavors of fudge...

These Egullet Forums are amazing!!! 😁😁

[Celest]

On 9/19/2018 at 5:20 AM, Kerry Beal said:

Since you can use fondant (the non cake topping kind) to set fudge without beating it - I wonder if you could use fondant sugar in it's place to set the fudge. 

So far from my limited experimenting, and reading of Peter Greweling's book Chocolates and confections, yes, I believe you can use it as a seeding base (like using tempered chocolate to seed un-tempered chocolate.)