Here comes the fudge! Here comes the fudge!

Due to the overwhelming, nearly unanimous vote in the comments for my last post, I made the fudge.
Some of you asked me to take pictures and give the recipe. Being nice like I am, I will do just that!

First of all you take 4 and 1/2 cups of sugar and mix in 4 Tablespoons cocoa.
The recipe doesn't say to mix the sugar and the cocoa first, so I suppose that you could just throw all of the ingredients in together and mix them up if that's really the way you like to do things, however, I find that if you do it my way, it's easier to get the clumps out of the cocoa.


(Please take note of how ambidextrous I am being. I am stirring with my right hand while taking a picture with my left. Please be impressed, I am right handed, and this was not as easy as it looks) (and yeah, I realize that I probably spelled that word wrong. It's 11:52 p.m. right now, and I'm just too darn tired to look it up to see how to spell it correctly, so please just deal with it. )


Next, mix in one large can of evaporated milk and one cube of margerine. Please note, I prefer butter, because it just tastes better. I guess that you could use margerine, but then your fudge won't taste as good as mine and you might have self esteem issues.


Due to the fact that I have one child that thinks that she doesn't like nuts, I've decided to be ultra cool mom, and make some fudge with nuts, and some without. See the cute little divider that I cleverly made out of the left over tin foil from my foil hats that I will be selling in my Esty shop. You know, the ones that will prevent the mind controlling electromagnetic waves from getting to your brain.
Pre order them now. They will make great Christmas gifts! I can monogram them too, but that will add an extra week to the production time.


Back to the fudge. Heat and boil it 7-8 minutes, stirring constantly. I boiled this for 8 minutes, and I probably should have stopped at 7.


Now this part is very important. Listen carefully.

When stirring your fudge DO NOT SCRAPE THE SIDE OF THE PAN!!!!!

Don't ask me why, I think it's supposed to keep it from going grainy, and help it to have a nice smooth texture. I learned this from a friend of mine whose husband is a Chef at the Lion House, so she should know what she's talking about.

(If you'll notice in this picture I've completely given up on trying to stir with my right hand while taking pictures with my left. After I nearly dropped the camera into the boiling hot fudge, I decided that I should probably hold the camera in my right hand, Besides, the camera strap kept getting in the picture and it was really stressing me out.)


After boiling for 7-8 minutes (again, I think I boiled it too long) Remove from the heat and stir in 1 cup of chocolate chips.

This is where everything went HORRIBLY WRONG, because in the recipe, I had written 1-2 bag of chocolate chips which I took to mean between one and two bags of chocolate chips which really seemed like a lot to me so I just dumped in one bag. Apparently, I should have trusted my instincts because after talking to my mom today, it was supposed to be 1/2 of a bag, or approximately 1 cup.

NOT THE ENTIRE BAG OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!




Anyway, at this point, instead of the chips melting nicely and the fudge turning creamy and smooth, the chocolate chips stuck together and the fudge got REALLY stiff and hard to stir.
I finally got all the chips melted into the mixture, but I still had a 16 ounce bag of mini marshmallows to stir in to the fudge!!!
(also, I took some time out to snap a quick picture of the chocolate chips to show you what they look like before they are all melted. Those few seconds might have cost me dearly)

At this point, I enlisted the help of my very strong hubby who put on the oven mitts and held on to the hot pan while I dumped the marshmallows in the fudge and started stirring.

And stirring.......



and stirring.......



and stirring.

Eventually, I got the darn marshmallows all mixed in but it was still kind of lumpy. (Sorry I didn't have any pictures of this part, but I was stirring with both hands while DH was holding the pan still, and quite frankly, I was getting a little onery about the whole thing)

I dumped some of the fudge in the pan, then added 1 cup of chopped pecans to the rest and stirred some more...........


(Now if I were Kristina, I might have thrown in a jar of bacon bits too)
Then I dumped the rest into the other side of the pan.


The pan was very heavy. Aaron was taking the pictures at this point. I had to use both hands. Notice the blue oven mitts? They are the ones featured here.


So, I'm not sure if it was because I cooked the fudge too long, or if it was because I used too many chocolate chips, but the fudge just didn't turn out as good as usual.



OK *Mary* you might have been right about what you said about fudge in your comment on my last post.

In a last act of desperation, I tried to smooth it out, thinking that it might actually look better.

Left side no nuts, right side nuts.

Let's just pretend that it looks like that because the lighting is bad, OK?


Now it should be common knowledge that anything left sticking to the inside of the pan belongs to the person who made it.

And I'm pretty sure that this part doesn't have any calories in it either.


Now here's a nice tasty chunk-o-fudge!! No comments *Mary* I promise it tasted really good.

Here is the finished product on a plate. Delicious!!!

While it was still warm, it was nice and creamy, but by morning, I was chipping it apart with a knife. But as I said before, it smelled good and it tasted good, and quite frankly, it was my reason for getting out of bed this morning.

And the kids liked it. In fact, they may or may not have had it for breakfast.



And I may or may not have used it as bribery incentive for Max to get dressed today.

And to clean up his toys.

And to stop whining.

And to sing my favorite songs.

Actually, I was feeling a bit like I was raising a trained seal.

"Here Max" as I'm holding the fudge over his head "sing a song for mommy! Come on Max, sing. Sing! SING!"

And then about 100 times today I got to hear him say "I ALSO DO NEED SOME MORE OF DAT STUFF!!"


My conclusion on the fudge. I should have only used one half of a bag of chocolate chips, and only boiled it for 7 minutes.

Still, it did satisfy my chocolate craving............

(and no, I didn't weigh myself to see how much weight I might have gained.)

I will now give you the recipe as long as you don't tell my mom that I gave it to you.


Fudge recipe

4 1/2 cups sugar
4 Tablespoons cocoa
1 cube margerine or butter (USE BUTTER!)
1 large can of evaporated milk

Heat and boil 7-8 minutes (7!) stirring constantly!
Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 bag of chocolate chips
Stir in 1 pint of marshmallow creme OR one 16 ounce bag of mini marshmallows.

Stir until dissolved
(or until your husband gets tired of holding the pan so you can stir with both hands)

Add one cup of chopped nuts then stir until creamy.

Variation on this recipe- leave out cocoa, use white chocolate chips, and add almond flavoring after it has boiled.