Oh, Fudge!
Oh Fudge! Chocolate Nut Fudge
Tis the season to be wrapping, shopping, and baking for holiday gatherings. But what holiday season is complete without homemade fudge? Certainly not mine, so yesterday I made my very first batch of homemade fudge. In the right hands, I’m sure it really is Foolproof Chocolate Fudge, but I am no ordinary fool.
Having made many batches of Rice Krispies Treats, I’m fully aware of the horrid mess melted sugar leaves in a saucepan. So, as I was melting and stirring my chocolate morsels, I decided this was just too much work for a dinky 9×9 inch pan of fudge. No problem. I have a 9×13 inch pan. It shouldn’t be too difficult to double the recipe.
I emptied my last bag of morsels into the mix and then realized that if one is going to double a recipe, one should have twice the amount of ALL the required ingredients. I was short one can of sweetened condensed milk, and already had a melted chocolate mess in the pan. It’s also a good idea to have made any recipe at least once, before diddling with said recipe.
All I can say is, there must be an awful lot of sweet in those cans of sweetened condensed milk, because my fudge-to-be wasn’t very sweet, and it wasn’t very smooth, either. However, I’m a resourceful little thing at times, so I added half a stick of butter to the mix, and the chocolate began to get nice and creamy. Yay! It was still quite bitter, so I started adding spoonfuls of marshmallow cream into it. Better, but still bitter, I got desperate and threw some granulated sugar into the mix.
Well, that was a big mistake. The mixture remained strewn with granulated sugar grit no matter how much I mixed, stirred, or tried to beat it to death with my trusty spoon. I even added a couple tablespoons of milk in a valiant attempt to get it to dissolve. Next time? I’ll use the confectioners sugar I keep on the shelf, right next to the granulated stuff. Duh.
The original recipe also called for the fudge to be removed from the heat before adding the vanilla and chopped nuts, but by this time, I had a rather large sticky mixture in my heavy bottomed saucepan. I knew it was going to start hardening as soon as I took it off the heat, and I was going to have to work very fast if I wanted the saucepan to release all of it’s contents.
Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to line the bottom of the 9×13 inch pan with waxed paper before I began my little adventure in candy making. I stirred in the vanilla, followed quickly by the nuts, and scraped roughly 4 lbs. of chocolate goo into a Pyrex pan. Then I stuck it in the fridge and waited (and waited) for it to harden.
Six hours later, I had fudge! Now, I needed only to turn it out of the pan, and onto a cutting board. Ah ha! A 9×9 inch pan could’ve been turned out onto a cutting board, but not a 9×13 inch pan. Oh, fudge. Okay, the table top was going to have to do. I flipped it over, and… nothing. I dropped it, slammed it, and even let it sit upside down for a while. Still nothing. Flip it out of the pan indeed!
Finally, I tried peeling the waxed paper away from the pan. A few rips and tears later, it was finally freed from it’s temporary container. Yay! I cut it into squares, and proceeded to fill my covered container, layering waxed paper between the layers of fudge. I put the finished candy back in the fridge, leaving a few pieces out on the table. It was going to be wonderful with my well deserved coffee break.
Well, except for the occasional piece of sugar grit, the texture was thick, and very creamy. All in all, it’s really not bad… if you happen to like semi-sweet chocolate.
And that, dear readers, is the story of how the expression Oh Fudge! came into existence, and is often heard around the world in places other than the kitchen. Really.
Technorati Tags: fudge, confections, kitchen disasters
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Lol! Cute story. I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who’s messed up on the “fool-proof” fudge.
Oh dear, I hope it wasn’t a double batch too!
That was hilarious Lisa! I can remember making fudge a long time ago, realizing that it wasn’t as easy as it looked and saying something along the lines of ‘Oh fudge’…;)
Fortunately, I have only the dog as witness to what really went on in my kitchen that day. Ever been laughed at by a dog?