Fudge @ high altitude

[Corey Edwards]

My wife is making fudge, we live at 4500 feet. I know boiling point goes
down by 2 degrees for every 1000 feet, but wasn't sure how that affected
the recipe. Joe pointed me here, although I found the answer in the mean
time. Figured I'd still post a message anyway in case anybody else
wondered, and to stimulate a little conversation.

Whole Food says:

Mixtures with high sugar content such as candy and frosting
become concentrated faster due to rapid evaporation. When using
a thermometer, reduce recipe temperature 1°F for every 500 feet
of elevation. Thus, if you live at 5,000 feet and the recipe
calls for a temperature of 234°F, cook it at 224°F. Monitor
closely to avoid scorching.

So for our 4500 and a recipe calling for 236, we need to adjust down to
227. I hope it works out. The last time we tried making candy we burned
the first batch because we cooked it on too high of heat. Then we
discovered our thermometer is a piece of junk and stops at 200, so we
had to use the old drop it in water method. That's not a good track
record.

Corey

[Ruth]

How did it turn out this time? Your information is correct on altitude
and temperature, but you still have to account of variations in
thermometers. Always test your thermometer in boiling water to see at
what temperature waters boils. Subtract this from 212. The difference
is the amount you will subtract from your sea-level recipe. The
weather sometimes affects this also. Be sure to always use a heavy pot
when making candy. If you are looking for a good candymaking book,
might I suggest Candymaking HP Books? Never had a failure yet:-)

[Corey Edwards]

On Fri, 2006-05-19 at 14:10 -0700, Ruth wrote:
> How did it turn out this time?

Quite well and quite rich. It's a little soft maybe, but in the fridge
it's firm enough. The texture is really smooth, no grit. One other thing
we wondered about was whether to use semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips.
I opted for the semi-sweet since there's so much sugar in the recipe I
wanted the extra bite to offset. Any opinions? As an interesting aside,
I tried some pure chocolate (no sugar, no cocoa butter, no nothing) at a
local candy shop. Blech, what nasty stuff. I'm sure it makes delicious
candy though.

> Your information is correct on altitude
> and temperature, but you still have to account of variations in
> thermometers. Always test your thermometer in boiling water to see at
> what temperature waters boils. Subtract this from 212. The difference
> is the amount you will subtract from your sea-level recipe. The
> weather sometimes affects this also.

Our original thermometer, may it rest in pieces, was one of the classic
dial kind. We have a nice digital probe thermometer which seems to be up
for the task, although the cute little pan attachment was nice. I would
expect it to wander a lot less, but a calibration is probably in order.
Wouldn't want my Q undercooked either.

> If you are looking for a good candymaking book,
> might I suggest Candymaking HP Books? Never had a failure yet:-)

Ooh, that strawberry on the cover looks lucious. Are you trying to make
me fat? :)

Corey

[Joseph Hall]

On 5/19/06, Corey Edwards <ten...@zmonkey.org> wrote:
> I tried some pure chocolate (no sugar, no cocoa butter, no nothing) at a
> local candy shop. Blech, what nasty stuff. I'm sure it makes delicious
> candy though.

I stlill have a couple of bars of Luker chocolate left. It's a pure
Columbian chocolate that they sell at a lot of Latin markets. Don't
try to eat it by itself, you'll hate it. But man, it makes some good
brownies. Actually, the Luker stuff itself is pretty strong, almost
like coffee. But what I love about pure chocolate is that you can mix
your own sugar and fat ratios. What was my point? Oh, right. Pure
chocolate, you won't like it until you give it something to balance
out the flavor.

--
Joseph

[perl...@gmail.com]

I made Alton Brown's fudge recipe
(http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_26073,00.html)
this weekend, with no deviations. Well, one, and I'll get to that.

Now, I'd never made fudge before. I've always wanted to, but never
gotten around to it. I looked at scores of recipes online before I
started and most of them would have me letting the temperature drop to
115F to 110F before stirring. Alton's recipe told me drop the temp to
130F. Well, after waiting well over half an hour for it to cool (Alton
said it would take about 10 minutes), the temp was about 133F and I got
sick of waiting. So I stirred early, my only deviation. The resulting
fudge was extremely smooth, much smoother than any I'd ever had before.
In fact, other fudges seemed almost grainy compared to this one.

Do you suppose that's because the recommended stirring temperature was
so much higher? I'm wondering if other cooks let it cool too much,
which might have allowed bigger sugar crystals to form. Or maybe it was
something else about the recipe, such as the corn syrup (which I
eyeballed, and might have added a touch more than was called for). What
do you think?

[Ruth]

I think you lucked out!!! The reason you cool it is to make it more
smooth. The warmer it is when stirred, the coarser the sugar grains.
Usually, the cooler the smoother. The corn syrup could have had a role
in it also. Did you put the pan in cold water to cool it? I can't
imagine it took so long to cool. Did you pour it into something else
to cool?
Ruth

[Joseph Hall]

I let it cool on a burner that had been turned off the whole time. It
never even occured to me to put it in cold water. Is that safe? How
low of a tempurature do you think I should go to?

--
Joseph

[Ruth]

I take it until I can feel neither hot nor cold--just body temp.
Letting it sit on a burner gives it more of a chance to grain. You
want to cool quickly--that is why marble and granite are popular with
candymakers.