I got to thinking about this when Gill bought me back some fudge from a Christmas market she'd been to. I sort of had the thought "surely it can't be too hard to make this?", and a very small amount of investigation suggested that I actually had everything I needed in the house. There seems to be lots of different methods, however I personally love soft, smooth fudge, so I tweaked and modified a couple of different recipes, and came up with one I thought would do the business.
One of the first things I was asked is "could you make tablet?" First off I had to find the difference (which seems to be the cooling method, and also tablet has a fairly long simmer/boil stage). The end result is I probably won't...partially as I'm not as keen on it, and partly as I can see me using fudge in cake/tray-bake recipes, but tablet, and it's harder, more granular texture probably won't work as well. Also, fudge only takes about 10 minutes to cook (+ cooling time).
You definitely need a thermometer for this, as the temperature is key to the texture...
Fudge - Recipe
- Line a small tin (approx 15x20cm) with baking parchment
Ingredients
- 300g sugar (caster or granulated)
- 170g evaporated milk (1 small tin)
- 50g butter
- 30g golden syrup
- 50g condensed milk
- 1tsp vanilla essence
1) Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan2) place over a low heat and stir while all the ingredients melt
3) Once everything has melted, bring the heat up to medium, and continue to stir while the mixture begins to boil. Make sure to not allow anything to burn to the bottom of the pan.
4) Use a thermometer or temperature probe to keep an eye on the mixture. You want to take it off the heat when it reaches 116'C (you'll have some visual warning when this is about to happen, as boil will lower, and the mixture starts to become visibly more viscous).
5) Once 116'C is hit, remove from the pan, and begin to stir/whisk. The purpose of this is to stop the sugar from crystallising as it cools. You want to continue whisking until the mixture starts to lose it's gloss, and begins to thicken. From experience, you'll be swapping arms a fair bit in this stage.6) Pour/scrape the mixture into the lined tin, and tip to get it as an even layer (it will still be pretty hot at this point, so be careful not to burn yourself)
7) Leave to cool until set. I sped this up by using ice blocks to set the tin on, and also placed it in the fridge.
8) Slice into small pieces, and devour!