Trying to Make Fudge

[MolecularnewbieParticipant]

Hi,

I’m trying to make fudge using the raw sugar known as Panela, Jaggery, Piloncillo (depending on what country you’re from). It’s that hard brown cake you see in many “bodegas”. I highly recommend it as it has a great taste (better than regular brown sugar) and is as nutritious as honey. But the problem is that it burns at 237 F (the softball stage for making fudge). If I stop before 237 F I get a delicious very thick sauce but not fudge. Does anybody have a suggestion to make my delicious sauce into a solid bar?

Thanks for any info,
Steve

PS: The ingredients are real simple, it’s just traditional fudge: 2 cups condensed milk, 2 cups sugar (panela), 1 bar of butter.

[Kevin LiuModerator]

@molecularnewbie,

The reason most fudge recipes tell you to take sugar up to 235F or above has to do with the desired moisture content of the finished product. In the end, however, it’s not the 235F that’s important, it’s 110F, when the desired crystals within sugar is formed.

So the question becomes: how do you decrease moisture level without raising the temperature to 235F?

I have two ideas for how to approach this, but I’m not sure if either will work:

1. Heat the jaggery up to its maximum non-burning temperature and hold for a long time (like, 30 minutes to an hour.) Perhaps enough moisture will slowly be driven off. You can even use a blow-dryer to increase air circulation and encourage evaporation.
2. Bind up some of the moisture content with a hydrocolloid. Maybe if you dose the butter or condensed milk with a TINY bit of xanthan, or perhaps tapioca maltodextrin it will bind up the moisture content and give your fudge just enough structure. Now that I think about it, tapioca maltodextrin would probably be preferable of the two.

I’m pretty confident you can achieve what you’re going after, but it will definitely take some experimentation.

Looking forward to your results!

[MolecularnewbieParticipant]

Thanks for the tips! Will let you know how it turns out.

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