Fondant texture (or what have I done wrong?)

[pbh4]

I just made some fondant according to the recipe in the sticky post. Having finished I am not sure if it turned out right or not because I have no idea what it is supposed to be like. Mine is soft but crumbly and gritty to the taste. Not unlike Kendall mint cake though not so minty I imagined it would be smoother.

Where did i go wrong - or didn't I?

Paul

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[Frisbee]

The commercial stuff, made in vast quantities and by machines is smoother. Yours sounds okay for home made.
Keep it covered.

Frisbee

 

[oliver90owner]

If it is 'gritty' you may not have dissolved all the granulated sugar (unlikely if it was boiled) or possibly not stirred/whisked it adequately as it cooled and crystallised, allowing large crystal sizes to grow, instead of many more but much smaller. Think rocks - granite and basalt, same overall composition, different appearance.

RAB

 

[pbh4]

Think rocks - granite and basalt, same overall composition, different appearance.

RAB

Helpful analogy. Sounds like it will be okay for the bees.

Thanks,

Paul

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[itma]

... I imagined it would be smoother.

Where did i go wrong - or didn't I?

Generally, the slower you crystallise a solution, the larger the individual crystals.
You can speed the crystallisation in this case by cooling faster, particularly once you have got down to the point where crystallisation is starting to happen. That's when you want to really whisk and chill.

 

[Headnavigator]

Sounds to me like the first batch I made, where OH shoved a sugar thermometer in my pan which showed I had brought it above the recommended temperature. (I couldn't see any difference in these 'soft ball' etc indicators and had gone on too long.) That was gritty and not pleasant and couldn't be described as fondant by any stretch of the imagination. I ditched that (well, OH made toffee from it) and tried again using the thermometer from the start, and found it came up to temp much quicker than I would have expected. I did the subsequent stirring with the pan in cold water then turned it out onto a large board. It was still far too hot to knead but I kept turning and pressing it with two wooden spatulas and it came smooth and silky as it cooled - I was chuffed to bits with it, hope the bees were too.
Have another go, with a thermometer, you can always use the thing for making toffee, jam fondant etc for ever after. (We had ours for jam making and it just hadn't occurred to me to use it for the sugar after the comments in the sticky. Wrong!)

 

[Russel]

The girls don't seem to mind a bit of rough?

 

[pbh4]

Have another go, with a thermometer, you can always use the thing for making toffee, jam fondant etc for ever after. (We had ours for jam making and it just hadn't occurred to me to use it for the sugar after the comments in the sticky. Wrong!)

I did use a sugar thermometer - two in fact - both borrowed from the same friend. They differed from one another by 30 degrees C! I checked with boiling water and the better of the two read 95 instead of 100 so I used this but stopped at 110 instead of 115.

For my very first attempt I got the correction the wrong way and overheated. That set rock solid (granite rather than basalt!). Good idea to use the failure for toffee. I was going to make some for bonfire night anyway.

Paul