Uh. Sometime in the last couple months I had a lovely mellow day. I ran some errands, did some homework, hung out at home, nothing special. And then at around 9 pm I realized GAH! GAHHHH! I am supposed to bring a food item to school tomorrow for my nutrition class potluck! And it has to be something that has cultural significance or was a family favorite. GAH! Why oh why didn't I remember this until 9 pm?
I toyed with the idea of zipping over to Safeway and picking up some pre-made potato salad which would have actually been appropriate because I'm, ya know, "American" (see also: Lazy).
BUT one of my life list goals is to recreate my grandmother's fudge recipe and I decided that it would be a good time to work on that. Also, fudge is pretty quick and easy to make and I read very carefully on the Nutrition syllabus and it did NOT say that our potluck items had to be healthful.
So I took a late night trip to the grocery store for the ingredients.
And then I got started. With lots and lots of sugar.
This time I used the recipe on the back of the Marshmallow fluff which goes like this:
3 cups sugar
3/4 cups (1.5 sticks) butter
1 small can (5 oz) evaporated milk
1.5 pkg (12 squares) baking chocolate
1 jar (7 oz) Marshmallow creme
1 tsp vanilla
But the grocery store only had 12 oz cans of evaporated milk and what the hell else am I going to do with evaporated milk? So I ended up just doubling the recipe and starting with SIX CUPS OF SUGAR. I added the milk and butter and brought it to a boil. Apparently I was also supposed to have a candy thermometer to make sure that it reached 234 degrees?
After it boiled, I added the baking chocolate squares and the marshmallow goo.
And when it was all mixed up, I poured it into a pan. And then another. And then another because holy moly doubling the recipe made a LOT of fudge!
And I brought it to school for Nutrition Potluck Day and everybody seemed to like it. Plus, I had a nice mushy story to tell about my grandmother and how I think the fudge recipe is an important piece of my family legacy, etc etc.
Outcome:
Delicious. Not QUITE her recipe but getting closer. I remember the chocolate being less chocolatey even though I seem to remember her using chocolate chips. And I don't think it was mushy at all-- like it was hard when you bit into it but then all melty in your mouth.
Next time:
Maybe I'll try a recipe that uses some brown sugar.
