No matter what anyone tells you, everybody who bakes has experienced a baking disaster at some point in their lives. Whether it be an undercooked sponge, or an exploding icing bag – we’ve all been there – but when it comes to making fudge, one of the biggest disasters that can occur is adding too much or too little of certain ingredients.
One of the most common mistakes that people make when baking fudge is adding too much butter. This is an ingredient that is easy to mess up, but in fudge too much butter can cause real problems when it comes to cooking or setting the mixture.
In this guide, we’ll be taking a look at what happens when you add too much butter to your fudge, and lots more. So to find out, keep on reading.
What Does Butter Do In Fudge?
In order to understand why adding too much butter to your fudge can be so detrimental, we first need to understand what butter does in fudge. When it comes to baking, every single ingredient has a purpose.
Most of the time, these purposes aren’t something that we really think about. That is until something goes wrong with the bake. So what does butter do in fudge?
Butter plays a similar role in fudge to what it does in other types of baking. This is because, in fudge, the butter works closely with the sugar.
No matter what type of fudge you are making, it is the butter’s job to control the sucrose molecules, and to prevent them from crystallizing. If these molecules were to crystallize, it would stop your fudge from having the desired smooth texture.
Instead, the fudge would have lumps of crystallized sugar throughout it, and this can really ruin both the taste and texture of the fudge.
So, as you can see, butter actually plays a really important role in the fudge making process. That is why it can be so detrimental if you add too much butter to your mixture. So let’s take a look at what happens if you do this.
What Happens If You Put Too Much Butter In Fudge?
As we have said, butter is an incredibly influential ingredient in fudge, and this is mainly because it is vital in ensuring that the texture of your fudge is just right.
It is the butter in fudge that ensures it has a soft and smooth texture, so if you add too much butter, it could damage the texture of your fudge. Let’s take a look at how.
If you add too much butter to your fudge mixture, it is likely that you will end up with a much wetter mixture than you should have. It will likely lead to the consistency of the mixture being a lot softer and runnier than it is supposed to be, and this can often lead to the fudge not cooking or setting correctly.
If you put too much butter in your fudge then it will mean that you have too little of the other ingredients, so it will typically result in your fudge not setting at all.
Adding too much butter isn’t the only error that will lead to this happening. You can also experience the same issues if you substitute butter for margarine, or if there is an excess of water in the fudge mixture.
So, typically speaking, if you add too much butter to your fudge then it simply won’t set, and as such it will be inedible. That is why it is very important that you always follow the recipe to the letter.
Why Did My Fudge Not Harden?
The problem with adding too much butter to your fudge mixture is that it is a really easy mistake to make. Most of the time when you measure butter, it will have a hard texture, and this can make weighing it out very difficult.
So, when you measure your butter, and you are slightly over the correct amount, it can be really easy to just dismiss it, and add the excess anyway. But, this is what often leads to your fudge not hardening.
When you have finished preparing the mixture for your fudge, the recipe will typically be quite wet. But, it will not be completely runny. Most of the time, you will be able to see that the mixture will set when given time to do so.
However, when you add too much butter, the mixture will frequently become almost watery. This is a good sign that your fudge is not going to harden as it is supposed to.
Like we said earlier, the main reason why fudge doesn’t harden is that you have made an error with the butter. This could be adding too much butter, using a substitute like margarine, or using butter that is too wet (i.e., if you melted it before adding it to the recipe).
There are some other things that could cause your fudge not to harden, for example if water has accidentally entered the mixture. But, most of the time it will be caused by an issue with the butter.
In Summary
The best way to avoid adding too much butter to your fudge is to weigh all your ingredients twice before you get started. We would always recommend weighing and preparing your ingredients before you even begin cooking as this can reduce stress significantly.
Preparing ingredients is one of the hardest parts of cooking, so it is best to get this out of the way before you get started.
Once you have weighed all your ingredients out, we would recommend double-checking them and weighing them all again. This will ensure that you haven’t made any mistakes, and will mean that you avoid any cooking disasters like the ones we have spoken about above.