Oh, Fudge

The weather, though not as severe as expected, forced Sissy to postpone our night out. This works out well for us since we are heading to KC to eat barbecue tomorrow (and I'll get to meet Jacque--if all works out with babysitting). We're leaving first thing in the morning--actually, even before first thing. So I don't have Sissy's analysis of the fudge, but the dude and my boss have both raved about memere's recipe. I think you can tell from the above comparison shot that her recipe (on the right, the chocolate) is drier. I can't describe the texture, almost gritty, soft and yet hard.

Her recipe:
1 can evaporated milk
1 lb brown sugar
1 lb confectioner's sugar
piece of butter, size of an egg yellow
2 1/2 heaping t Hershey cocoa
2 1/2 heaping t of marshmallow
3/4 cup walnuts
Put milk, sugar, and butter in a deep pan. Stir continuously until you can drop a bit into cold water and it's kind of caramel-ly in about 1/2 hour. Keep stirring. Then put in marshmallow, stir, put in nuts, stir. Pour into butter greased pan.

Here's my interpretation: butter, 1 T; about 4 teaspoons of cocoa; and I used marshmallow fluff for the marshmallow because this isn't the kind of fudge that has marshmallow chunks in it. I put the pan on medium heat because who knows what it is supposed to be. At about 20 minutes, there was a definite change in how it felt to stir it and lo, and behold, when I dropped some into cold water it didn't just seem "caramel-ly," it tasted just like caramel. I put the cocoa in when I put in the marshmallow, because it doesn't say when to add that. (I love that kind of recipe the best!) I probably should have taken it all off the heat at that point, and with future attempts I probably will. You should probably switch to a whisk when you put in the fluff because it's a lot of work to get the lumpy marshmallow incorporated with a wooden spoon. I think it was smart to use a glass pan, but grease it within an inch of its life because this stuff is hard to get out of the pan!

The recipe on the left, came from my friend, DD. You'll have to ask her.