White Holiday Fudge Recipe: White Chocolate Caramel Fudge Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Is white fudge the same as white chocolate? ›

White chocolate fudge is a type of confectionery that is made from white chocolate, sugar, butter, and condensed milk.

What is fudge? While caramel usually contains just one key ingredient, fudge is made from a perfectly balanced mixture of sugar, butter, and milk. Plus, it's not heated as high — around 115 degrees Celsius.

Fudge Didn't Set

If your fudge turned out super sticky, or it didn't set as it cooled, it probably never got hot enough. This mistake is super easy to avoid if you use a candy thermometer and cook the fudge to the temperature specified in the recipe (usually between 234 and 239°F).

Evaporated milk doesn't have sugar added. The sweetened condended milk is needed as no extra sugar is added to the fudge. If evaporated milk were used then the fudge would not be sweet enough and also would still be too soft unless the fudge is frozen.

White chocolate is coagulated cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is the vegetable oil that comes from cocoa beans. White chocolate has no cocoa powder in it, which is why it tastes the way it does, and why it is white instead of brown like chocolate is.

Instead, the FDA referred to what people were calling “white chocolate” as “confectionery coating” or “white confectionery coating.” Chocolate peddlers often referred to it as white chocolate to better explain the product to the consumer, as it had a presentation and mouthfeel similar to milk and dark chocolate.

Key Takeaway: White chocolate contains essential minerals, antioxidants and tryptophan which can help improve overall health by reducing inflammation, promoting cognitive performance, and possibly even improving heart health.

Fudge can turn into caramel due to overcooking or undercooking, incorrect temperatures, or wrong ingredients.

Homemade Fudge Doesn't Always Set

If your fudge doesn't firm up after a few hours, you either have too high an amount of liquid to sugar, or your mixture hasn't reached the soft-ball stage. Using a candy thermometer can help home cooks avoid this problem.

Why is my caramel fudge grainy? ›

It might be that you haven't dissolved all the sugar before boiling the fudge mixture. It could be that there just wasn't enough fluid or fat to enable the sugar to dissolve or it might even be that the fudge wasn't beaten long enough or hard enough. All of these factors could be the cause of grainy fudge.

Once a seed crystal forms, it grows bigger and bigger as the fudge cools. A lot of big crystals in fudge makes it grainy. By letting the fudge cool without stirring, you avoid creating seed crystals.

Candy that isn't cooked long enough will end up too soft; overcooking makes fudge crumbly or hard. High-quality fudge has many small crystals. If the process of crystallization begins too early, fewer crystals form and they become much larger.

There are lots of fudge recipes around which don't use vanilla at all (it's a treat which is very open to experimentation in general). So if you don't add vanilla, it won't taste like vanilla, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will taste bad, have the wrong consistency or behave differently when cooked and cooled.

It's the size of sugar crystals that makes the knees of fudge lovers buckle…the smaller the crystals, the less they are perceived on the tongue and the more the fudge tastes smooth and creamy. Cooking, and beating after cooking, is the key to successful fudge.

Cream of tartar is used in caramel sauces and fudge to help prevent the sugar from crystallizing while cooking. It also prevents cooling sugars from forming brittle crystals, this is why it's the secret ingredient in snickerdoodles!

Undercooked. This fudge was cooked until the temperature reached only108 °C (226 °F). At this temperature, the sugar is not concentrated enough... there is too much leftover water in the syrup and the resulting fudge is soft.