82. Make fudge with grandma

"When you're making fudge, you're making fudge!"

I got to spend an evening with my grandma last night.  I have no idea when the last time that happened that it was just the two of us (if ever!).  The purpose for my trip was to be able to make a batch of fudge with my grandma.  For as long as I can remember, the holidays involved a big plate of fudge made by my grandma.  There was always a tray with nuts and some without.  I don't think I even want to know how many pounds of sugar I have consumed over my lifetime from eating her fudge.  It is so good.

When I asked her about her secret recipe, she told me that there was no secret to it.  She was in fact correct.  When she pulled out the book with the recipe, it was just a regular Betty Crocker cookbook from decades ago.  Here's what Betty says you need for the recipe:

4 cups of Sugar
2 sticks of butter
14.5 oz can of evaporated milk
12 oz of semi sweet chocolate chips
1 pint of marshmallow fluff
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup of chopped walnuts

That's it!  No secret ingredient at all!  (But, a lot of sugar!)

The first thing you need to do is bring the sugar, butter and evaporated milk to a low boil (234º).  That is apparently super important.  It can't get hotter but it can't be even a degree lower.  As the temp is going up you need to be constantly stirring the mixture to make sure the sugar and butter don't caramelize.  It was work just to stay focused on the mixture.  And as Grandma said many times, and my mom told me as well.  You can't multitask when you are making fudge.  I have heard the line from both of them, "When you're making fudge, you're making fudge!"  That is it.  It was true, you can't do anything else but mix and chat.

After you get the mixture up to the magical 234º, you turn off the burner and mix in the chocolate chips.  At this point I said it was getting somewhat difficult to mix.  Grandma told me it hadn't even gotten close.  She was right, after mixing in the chocolate, we put the marshmallow fluff in.  That was tough.  At this point we also added the vanilla.

After I mixed for about five agonizing minutes of mixing with a spatula Grandma brought out the hand mixer and quickly blended the mixture together.  I'm not sure if that could have been used earlier, but it sure would have come in handy.

After about 3 minutes being mixed it was ready to be put into the greased up pans.  I put half of the mixture into one pan, then stirred some chopped walnuts into the remaining mixture and poured it into the other greased pan.

That was it.  No secret recipe, no secret technique.  All we did was follow the directions that a Betty Crocker cookbook laid out a number of decades ago.

I had a really good time. 

Here is the reward for completing this goal.

Another yummy goal down!