Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

Make this on a day that is not rainy. If it is too wet out, it will not set right and will crumble.

4 cups sugar

12.5 oz evaporated milk

1 cup butter

7 oz. marshmallows

12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (one regular-sized bag)

1 tsp. vanilla

In a large pot, melt the butter with the evaporated milk. Add the sugar. Bring to a medium/medium high heat. While stirring constantly, boil the mixture. Get a bowl of ice water, and after the mixture has begun to thicken (about 10 minutes, maybe), drizzle some into the water to test it. When it is ready, the fudge will form a ball in the water that can be squeezed softly with your fingers. The boiling fudge in the pot will have a “quilted” texture:

This is close to "quilted"

Once the fudge has reached this stage, take it off the heat and add the marshmallows and chocolate chip. Mix quickly and thoroughly; keep mixing for a few minutes after it looks melted and homogenized.

Pour into a large  (13×11 or so, it doesn’t really matter) pan or several small pans/dishes, preferably lined with aluminum foil. Let it sit out until it cools and is firm. You can easily package it in wax paper for distribution to friends and family!

This may take a few batches of trial-and-error before you get the texture right. You have to take it off the heat at the right time or it may be mushy or grainy. Either way, it will taste really good though!

For the proper recipe and directions, go here. For entertainment, continue reading.

My 15-year old brother had been pestering me to make fudge with him. We had done this once over the summer, when a flight of boredom and sugar craving had led to the following work of art:

This was our result in July.

This week, we were not so lucky.

So we start putting things in a pot. We begin to melt butter, add evaporated milk. Whisk it around for a bit. We decide to add the sugar, then the marshmallows. It becomes very fluffy…not the thick but fluid mixture that we are supposed to boil until it gets a “quilted texture.”

We have made a mistake.

We aren’t quite sure what, but we pull it off the heat and go consult an expert (The Editor, whose recipe book provided the directions we were working with). “You are supposed to boil it until ready, then take it off the heat and add the marshmallows and chocolate.”

Oh.

So we go back downstairs and look at the mess. We realize that any more heating is going to turn it into a solid block of mess. We quickly brainstorm if there is a way to rescue it into some other dish. Aha! Rice Krispie Treats have butter and marshmallows, right? We’re pretty close, we’ll just make that! We only had cornflakes, though, so we decided to make stuff for wreaths.

It didn’t….quite work.

First step: add food coloring to the marshmallow/butter/sugar/milk goop

Add cornflakes. Oh boy...that does not look tasty at all. Better add more food coloring. I am not even going to say what that looks like...

Ta-da! We made...alien candy. It tasted like candied corn flakes. Kinda like if you mixed mushy fudge and cereal. It was edible, but left something (significant) to be desired.