How can I salvage this fudge?

[Eireann]

I decided to make Million-dollar Fudge this holiday season. I got all the ingredients. I started up the cooking process yesterday.

Now, please, don't criticize what I did. I already know I made a mistake. The question is, how do I rectify it?

The mistake: Instead of using evaporated or regular milk, I used sweetened condensed milk. The fudge (which calls for four CUPS of sugar) is a thick, gritty, overly-sweet mess. It set up just fine! It smells nice! It also has a pleasant undertone of caramel, no doubt due to the extra cooking I gave it when I realized that things weren't going the way they should.

How do I de-grit it? I'm going to add cocoa powder to it to cut the sweetness and, well, add chocolate flavor, but how do I get that gorgeous, smooth texture?

[mjr]

That's an interesting one. Have you made these before? It may be a crystallization problem, believe it or not. I'm not sure you can fix it without starting over.

With crystallization, temperature is generally the problem. I'm assuming there was some sort of chocolate batter involved.

Here's an article on crystal formation in fudge:

https://www.exploratorium.edu/cookin...dge-story.html

[Eireann]

I've made it before - many years ago, when my mom had already purchased the right ingredients, and was there to handle any questions I had. This particular fudge calls for sugar, milk, butter, chocolate pieces, and marshmallow creme. Yeah... rich stuff. You boil the sugar, milk, and butter for six minutes, then mix it with the other ingredients and beat well before adding vanilla and walnuts.

The sugar doesn't have large crystals, so that's not the problem. My guess is that the fact that the milk was already VERY sweet kept the sugar from dissolving in it. I put the saucepan back on the stove, on the lowest heat setting, for three hours last night - it didn't help.

Would it help if I took chunks of the stuff, a bit at a time, and cooked them in milk?

[mjr]

I've made it before - many years ago, when my mom had already purchased the right ingredients, and was there to handle any questions I had. This particular fudge calls for sugar, milk, butter, chocolate pieces, and marshmallow creme. Yeah... rich stuff. You boil the sugar, milk, and butter for six minutes, then mix it with the other ingredients and beat well before adding vanilla and walnuts.

The sugar doesn't have large crystals, so that's not the problem. My guess is that the fact that the milk was already VERY sweet kept the sugar from dissolving in it. I put the saucepan back on the stove, on the lowest heat setting, for three hours last night - it didn't help.

Would it help if I took chunks of the stuff, a bit at a time, and cooked them in milk?

Well, it's not that the sugar has large crystals. It's that crystals get created during the process. You have to control when they form. See the link I posted previously regarding crystal formation.

Reheating is not going to fix it, I don't think. In fact, that may make it worse. Especially since that can create more crystals. Once the crystals have formed, you can't really "un form" them. So breaking off chunks and cooking them in the milk will likely be a futile effort.

It is possible that since you used the sweet condensed milk, that you actually ended up with too much sugar, and the crystals formed too soon in the process. Also, if you don't have a candy thermometer, I'd suggest one. That might help you control temperatures better.

Edited to add: See if you can find the Good Eats episode called "Fudge Factor". It's not exactly the same recipe you're using, but it may give some hints to reduce crystal formation.

Maybe take some of it and let it sit for a day or two? Put some in your refrigerator? Sugar can absorb water, so maybe that might "soften" it a little, and might get rid of some of the grit.

[Kittish]

If you can get the fudge to actually melt to any significant degree, I think I'd try adding some unsweetened baking chocolate. Melt the chocolate before you add it. I'd be cautious using cocoa powder. I recently tried to make 'homemade' chocolate with cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Tastes ok, but it's weirdly gritty from the cocoa powder. Turns out there's an hours long process called conching that makes chocolate have that velvety smooth texture as it melts in your mouth, and there's really no good way to do this process at home. Mjr may well be right about not being able to get rid of the crystals, though. Sugar is kind of tricky stuff to work with.

[RootedPhoenix]

I think that maybe Kittish is right. If you add more chocolate, that may help if the problem is too much sugar.

[mjr]

I don't think it's an amount of sugar thing. I think it's a crystal formation thing.

[Eireann]

I have turned part of the fudge into a very thick chocolate sauce which should do well on ice cream, in hot chocolate, or as one rich frosting. I'm giving it to a friend. As for the rest of it, well.... I don't know yet.

[lordlundar]

The use of the sweetened condensed milk is your killer. Liquids have what is called a saturation point which is a a mark where solids will not dissolve. you can raise it up by heating it and forming a supersaturated liquid (a common method in candy making) but it is very delicate and any unplanned movement breaks the supersaturation and causes the crystals to form.

Your recipe that calls for regular milk gets pretty high on the saturation mark and evaporated milk is barely teetering on it. Sweetened condensed milk is way over that line. Sadly, once the crystals have formed they're stable and you're not going to be able to do anything with them.