Best Cookie Dough Fudge Recipe - Cooking With Karli (2024)

FAQs

What makes fudge smooth? ›

For first-time candy makers: Look for recipes that call for corn syrup, marshmallows, or marshmallow crème. These ingredients prevent crystallization of sugar into large grains, so the texture of the fudge will remain smooth. Also, recipes using cream or condensed milk are less likely to curdle than regular milk.

Insider asked three chefs to share how to take store-bought cookie dough to a whole new level. They said rolling the dough in spices or a fun garnish can elevate your cookies. The chefs also recommended adding salty mix-ins like pretzels, chips, or nuts to your dough.

Grainy Fudge

To avoid this issue, swirl the pan instead of stirring it with a spoon. You can use a wet pastry brush to wipe down any sugar that sticks to the sides of the pot.

Start cooking over low heat and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Don't stir for the rest of the cooking. The syrup temperature rises slowly at first, but a lot faster after 104 °C (220 °F). Don't get distracted!

By letting the fudge cool without stirring, you avoid creating seed crystals. Stirring would help sucrose molecules "find" one another and start forming crystals. Stirring also introduces air, dust, and small dried bits from the walls of the saucepan—all potential seeds for crystal formation.

During cooking, sugar crystals can stick to the sides of the pan. If you stir the mixture, these crystals could fall in and crystallize a part of the sugar again.

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.

If the dough is chilled before baking then the cookies will be slightly more rounded, so if you want slightly flatter cookies then bake them as soon as you have mixed up the dough. But we would not recommend flattening the cookies completely as this will affect the texture.

"When your dough is refrigerated, the butter hardens. So when you bake them, they spread less and hold their shape better," adds Epperson. "Which means a better likelihood of a soft, chewy cookie in the center." Chilling the dough creates fluffier cookies with better consistency.

Some premade cookie dough can have a processed, almost chemical-like aftertaste, but you can mask it by adding extra flavor extracts to your dough. You can use a splash of vanilla extract or try other variations, like almond extract or mint extract, to change up the flavors of your cookies.

What to add to store-bought sugar cookie dough? ›

Almond Extract: For a twist on the traditional sugar cookie flavor, try adding a small amount of almond extract. Start with 1/2 teaspoon and adjust according to your preference. Citrus Zest: Incorporate the zest of citrus fruits like lemon, orange, or lime into the dough. The zest adds a bright and refreshing flavor.

Prep Instructions

HEAT oven to 350°F (or 325°F for nonstick cookie sheet). PLACE cookie dough rounds about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. BAKE 10 to 14 minutes or until light golden brown.

While you ultimately want crystals to form, it's important that they don't form too early. The key to successful, nongrainy fudge is in the cooling, not the cooking.

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!

It should hold together well without being too hard and, above all, has to be melty and silky in your mouth. 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.