Fudge

I recently had the great joy of hosting a cookie party at my house.  I try to do this every year just before the holidays, and it seems to be pretty popular.  I asked everyone to bring 2 dozen of their favorite cookies, candies, or bars, and one copy of their recipe.  We just put the cookies out, ate until we were almost sick, and then everyone got to take home a plate of the cookie assortment.  I typed up the recipes and emailed them out, so now we can all add to our recipe boxes.

The recipe that I chose to make was fudge.  This is my mom's recipe, and she has no idea where it came from, but it is my dad's most favorite thing this time of year, so we always make at least one batch.

For a printer-friendly copy of this recipe, click here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z4qhpyk1cxxGl7apCn5fcsgktDMnY5eo-6i4K1Fmg2c/edit

Ingredients:
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter or oleo (1 1/2 sticks)
5 fluid oz. (2/3 cup) evaporated milk (the little can)
1 tsp vanilla
12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
7 oz. marshmallow cream
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

I said that it was good, people, but it's fudge.  It is obviously not a health food.  Just don't eat the whole pan and you will be okay.

Start off by combining the sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a heavy large saucepan.  Turn the heat onto medium and stir until the butter is melted and the sugar dissolved in it.

Keeping the heat on medium, bring it to a full roiling boil, stirring occasionally so that the sugar doesn't scorch.  "Full roiling boil" means vigorous bubbles all over the pan, not just in the middle, that you can't stir down no matter how hard you try.  When you hit this stage, start your timer for 5 minutes and stir the whole time.  You are boiling off some of the water that is present in the butter, a step that is important to the final consistency, so don't skimp on the time.

You can see that it darkened a bit over those 5 minutes.

The last few steps need to be done quickly, so be prepared in advance with all of your ingredients on the counter, opened up, and your pan greased.  When your 5 minutes are up, take the pan off of the heat and add the vanilla.  Stir it in, then dump in the chocolate chips.  Quickly stir to get them all melted.  Your fudge is rapidly cooling, so every second makes it harder to get them melted and requires more biceps.

Still moving like the Flash, stir in your marshmallow cream and nuts if you want to add them.  By this step you will definitely need to use those muscles, but think of how nice your arms will look next year during swimsuit season.  Assuming, that is, that you don't eat the whole pan of fudge.  Keep stirring until all traces of white are gone.

Now pour it into that 13x9" pan that you greased before you started.  Make pretty designs on the top with your spatula before it sets up, and try to restrain yourself as it cools.  If you set the pan up on a cooling rack so that air can get to the bottom you will be there a lot quicker.  Once it's cool, slice it into little bars and go crazy.

I have found that this recipe rivals those of any little shop with the word "fudge" in the name and is so easy to make.  It is definitely cheaper -- I recently paid $17 for a small piece of specialty fudge just to try it, and it still wasn't as good as mine.  Oh, and little kids love, love, love it (at least mine does).

Just be sure that you let someone special lick the spoon ...