I make peanut butter/chocolate fudge with the cocoa:sugar:milk:vanilla ratios of the old Hershey’s Cocoa box recipe, viz., 2/3 cup:3 cups:1 1/2 cups:1 tsp. (Other ingredients: 1+ pound of Jif extra chunky peanut butter, 1/2 stick unsalted butter, fried bacon bits, 1/2–1 tsp red pepper flakes or 1/4 tsp cayenne or less, Kosher salt sprinkled over hardened fudge). The last time I made it, I only had Dutch process (DP) cocoa. The difference in taste was unexpectedly dramatic. The cocoa seemed to overwhelm the taste of the peanut butter to the point I almost couldn’t tell the peanut butter was there. Do you think that reducing the amount of the DP cocoa and/or adding a solid acid like citric/tartaric/ascorbic acid would help?
December 5, 2023 at 3:35pm
I make peanut butter/chocolate fudge with the cocoa:sugar:milk:vanilla ratios of the old Hershey’s Cocoa box recipe, viz., 2/3 cup:3 cups:1 1/2 cups:1 tsp. (Other ingredients: 1+ pound of Jif extra chunky peanut butter, 1/2 stick unsalted butter, fried bacon bits, 1/2–1 tsp red pepper flakes or 1/4 tsp cayenne or less, Kosher salt sprinkled over hardened fudge). The last time I made it, I only had Dutch process (DP) cocoa. The difference in taste was unexpectedly dramatic. The cocoa seemed to overwhelm the taste of the peanut butter to the point I almost couldn’t tell the peanut butter was there. Do you think that reducing the amount of the DP cocoa and/or adding a solid acid like citric/tartaric/ascorbic acid would help?