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Chocolate Fudge
From Dorothy McNett's recipes at www.dorothymcnett.com. This is the good old-fashioned cooked fudge, sometimes a little "sugary" and full of rich chocolate flavor. And, here is a poem written by my daughter Alison and our neighborhood girls, Meg and Kate, as they were cooking up a batch of fudge in my kitchen when they were only about 12 years old or so. Apparently they were having a little trouble getting the mass out of the cooking pan!
" I don't have a grudge, cos' you look like muds so I might put you in the suds but please, fudge, budge. Might I have to nudge, please fudge, budge. We should throw you in the suds cos' you'd make us pudge, but who am I to judge, fudge? All I want to know is fudge, oh why won't you budge-" By, The Spatula (all rights reserved)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups sugar (raw sugar)
2/3 cup milk or half and half
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup chopped nuts, if desired
Oil a 9 by 9 inch baking pan. Set aside. Measure out the butter and set it aside. Put about 1/2 cup cold water into a glass measuring cup and set it aside along with a teaspoon. In heavy bottomed 2 quart saucepan combine sugar, milk, chocolate, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring with silicone spatula and avoiding splashing the mixture up the sides of the pans. When chocolate has melted and sugar is dissolved, stop stirring and reduce heat to medium low. Cook to 235-240 degrees (soft ball stage) on a candy thermometer, or until a teaspoon of the mixture dropped into the cup of cold water forms a soft ball when gathered up with your fingers. This cooking usually takes about 5 - 10 minutes or more. If needed, stir very gently but not constantly. When it is at the soft ball stage, remove from the heat and gently stir in the butter and then set the pan aside and DO NOT STIR until the mixture cools to lukewarm. This will take at least 1/2 hour, maybe more. When lukewarm, add the vanilla and beat with a silicone spoon/spatula until thick and less shiny. Quickly stir in nuts if using, and then pour into the prepared pan. When the fudge has "set up", cut into squares.
Recipe created 2009-11-08.
