[cooknguy]

Well, I'm not eating fudge any time soon, unless I buy it.

Most of the fudge recipes I find on the internet say after everything is melted, turn the heat up high and bring it to a boil and go to about 230-240°.

Maybe I used too high heat. The mix was boiling good. The temp hadn't reached 220° before the mix began to smell like it was burning. I removed it from the heat and poured it out.

Now, I have a nice thick choco-crust firmly stuck in my SS lined copper pot.

Where did I err?

[panini]

water will dissolve that mess. check recipe

[thebighat]

Fudge isn't one of those things you just throw everything in pot and cook to 230 or 240 (big difference). You need to take care from the start to make sure all the sugar is dissolved before it boils, that the sides of the pan are washed down, that the fudge boils slowly and sullenly to the proper temperature, that it is either cooled and beaten, or not, depending on the desired texture. I've screwed it up enough times myself, but the happy news is that panini is right. An hour in the sink filled with warm water and that swill will come right out of the pan. My brother gave me a recipe for buttermilk pralines (do a yahoo search for buttermilk candy) and I smoked the pan. Feel like such a klutz making this stuff.

[cooknguy]

Yeah, it's not as easy as it may seem. I finally got the crud out of the pan. It never soften. It merely lifted at the edges, a little at a time. It would then chip off in hard flakes. It took about 6 hours.

Anywho...I'm ready to run at it again.

Several people suggested a double boiler. Is that necessary or desired? I haven't seen any recipe suggest it.

[bigbuns]

We've been making a family recipe for years (I still make it in my mother's heavy-duty aluminum pressure cooker pot....no, no cover!). After the sugar was TOTALLY dissolved, we would adjust to a little less than a medium-high heat. It must be slowly brought to a bubbling boil, but what we found was crucial was constant stirring. I have great memories of my mother and I taking turns stirring until it reached the right boil and then beating the heck out of it until it was cool and thick. My favorite memory is when she tried to double the recipe. When it started coming to a boil, it expanded and started to overflow the pot. I whipped in another pot that she poured half into. Then we were both standing at the stove, stirring, stirring, stirring. I started quoting the speech of the 3 witches in Shakespeare's "MacBeth"...
"double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble". We ended up laughing so hard (it had been a very trying day), we ended up having a chocolate battle. Chocolate started flying everywhere. It was a mess, but it is one of my greatest memories of Mom.