Fudge has been on the agenda since I my cheap-ass food thermometer arrived. As a student I'm reheating a lot of stuff and after one too many cases of Delhi belly - in Oxford, admittedly - I decided that a food thermometer wouldn't be a bad idea, just to check everything was heated through. But it was mainly about the fudge making possibilities it opened up.
Today, me and my brother had finished doing a mahusive pile of washing up, and turned our attention to fudge recipes, and promptly realised that most recipes seem to call for either a) condensed milk OR b) double cream. We had neither. It was a Sunday afternoon. We would not be getting any.
So, despite its decidedly mediocre reviews, we ended up settling on this Vanilla fudge recipe, as it only called for milk, and it's not half bad. I've hidden it in a cupboard now because everyone had eaten five pieces before I was on to my second! Slightly bizzarely, it tasted very much of shortbread...
Texture-wise, it came out really crumbly and sandy, and my brother proclaimed that this was how fudge was meant to be. I defer to him because he's definitely the fudge expert of the family. He was an absolute star, actually doing much of the stirring, the cutting, and giving me tips on how to get it nice and flat and smooth. Team effort... maybe too many cooks spoil the broth, but two cooks certainly don't spoil the fudge - it's awesome to have someone to split the stirring duties with when it takes over half an hour!
Next on the agenda is a fudge recipe with either condensed milk or cream (i.e. a fudge recipe for a day when we have planned more than five seconds in advance) and probably one using some strawberry flavouring. I hadn't even realised it existed until the other day when I saw some in my boyfriend's Mum's cupboard, and now I can't wait to get some! Strawberries and cream, here we come... I think the few sunny days we had this week may have made me overly optimistic about the whole 'summer is on its way!' thing. Calm down, dear, it's not even quite spring yet...
Vanilla Fudge
This is the recipe from the Good Food channel, by James Martin. I thought I'd pop it up here for easy reference and also so you can have a look at our method photos (the fun of cooking in pairs!)
300 ml milk
350 g caster sugar
100 g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1. Grease an 18cm square cake tin. Well, that's what's recommended. We had to use a 19cm square because it was the smallest we had, and it was a little bit thin, if I'm honest. Very good for tiny bite sized chunks, but you tend to eat more of them that way! Also, we decided that it would be far easier to get it out if we just lined it with an oversized bit of greaseproof paper and pulled it out when set, and it worked perfectly.
2. Put the milk, sugar and butter in a heavy-based saucepan. Heat slowly, stirring all the time, until the sugar has dissolved and the butter melted.
3. Bring to the boil and boil for 15-20 minutes, stirring all the time. It took us closer to 20 minutes, if not slightly more, though because it started to burn we were using a heat setting of 4 out of a possible 5 on our electric hob.
4. When the mixture reaches the soft-ball stage (115°C on a sugar thermometer), remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Leave to cool for 5 minutes.
5. Beat the mixture with a spoon for a few minutes until it starts to thicken and the gloss disappears.
6. Pour into the prepared tin and leave to set at room temperature (do not put it in the fridge).
7. Once set, cut the fudge into small squares and store in a sealed container.
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