(Question) Searching for the secret to recreate bakery-level fudge frosting. (x-post: from r/baking)

Hello,

This is my first post to reddit. I was wondering if any of you could help me out with something. For over a year now I've been trying to recreate real fudge frosting- the type you find at a bakery. I've made dozens of attempts, all for naught. I've tried different recipes with cocoa powder (natural and dutched), melted unsweetened chocolate, combined cocoa powder with melted chocolate; used confectioner's sugar, or granulated sugar; with butter, or with milk/cream; I've tried ganache recipes (these are definitely good but not what I'm looking for).

I've made /actual/ fudge and after several..bad tries, I got it to come out right, but that wasn't really it either. I made a boiled icing once that hardened, and it came out..okay, but not great.

Every recipe I look at has similar ingredients: sugar (confectioners or granulated,) chocolate (either melted unsweetened, melted bittersweet/semisweet, or cocoa powder), butter/oil or shortening, sometimes glucose syrup, vanilla, and milk/cream/sometimes half and half.

The recipe I've tried that has come the closest to what I'm thinking is out of "Rosie's all-butter cream-filled sugar-packed baking book." It calls for unsweetened chocolate, evaporated milk, and /granulated/ sugar. This is the only recipe I've found with granulated sugar in which you don't have to melt it beforehand- and it turns out creamy, not grainy in the slightest.

I guess what I'm wondering is- how do you make a frosting /really/ fudgy? I think it's a texture as much as a taste- a lot of my experiments were plenty chocolatey but that robust fudginess was totally lacking. From all my experiments, my observations so far are: I think granulated sugar may bring better results than confectioners sugar for that specific taste/texture; melting chocolate may yield something a bit harder/chewier as the chocolate will harden back up; The evaporated milk had a more almost toasty, caramel-y flavor to it and maybe this is part of why that specific recipe got closer than all the other ones I tried.

I found a couple visual examples that I feel encompass that..all around perfect "Fudge" feeling I'm trying to achieve: The top of this cake:http://ift.tt/1WGa90G The top of this cookie (this looks even a bit harder than a normal frosting but I've had these before and it completely encapsulates that "Fudge" essence :') http://ift.tt/25jGOyO

So my question is, what can I do to improve? Can anyone give me some advice on how to move forward, or maybe something different to try?

Thank you!

bon appetit