Oh, Fudge
The fudge beat me too.
I guess this isn’t a candy year for us.
The fudge smelled really good. It looked like the picture. Brown, fudgy goodness with a puddle of melted butter on top.
Then I turned on the mixer.
The fudge just spun around the bowl in a solid mass greased by the melted butter which splashed out on my nice sweater. When I lifted the beaters it stretched and stretched and stretched like taffy. I took a picture so you could see the crazy stuff. Sadly, it was blurry. Even my pictures of candy don’t work.
I kept at it for a while, but nothing changed. It didn’t darken; it didn’t lose its sheen; the beaters didn’t leave trails in the fudge showing it was done. Nope, it just spun around the bowl like it was on the teacup ride at Disneyland.
Then I thought, maybe my hand mixer just isn’t strong enough. Martha Stewart used her kitchen aid. This recipe said not to move it from the pan because it could crystalize but at this point I figured I had nothing to lose. Into the mixer bowl it went and sadly it just spun around the beater. The added power only served to fling fudge bits onto my sweater to go with the butter splotches.
Irritated at yet another failure I went to the computer to see if there were any hints online as to what went wrong. Looking at the recipe on the magazine site I saw that I was one of many who were unable to get this recipe to work. I also saw that one successful person beat it at 100 degrees instead of the recipes called for 110.
So I went upstairs and tried beating it again. The center of the bowl got closer to fudge but too dry and crumbly and the outer edges remained slick and caramel like and fused to to bowl.
Into the trash went the last candy attempt for this year. I think I’ll stick to bread and cookies where I am more successful and just keep buying my candy from See’s.
For consolation, I made up a batch of Chex Mix. You can always count on that.
– marcella
Oh dear — I’m glad I stuck with cookies and bread (Danish recipes from my great-grandmother, passed on through the generations). HDW liked the bread, not so much the cookies. Good for us, since we like them — my niece made a special request to be sure to have enough when she arrives from Florida.
Yes, it was an adventure. We did successfully make marshmallows this morning. Tomorrow they will be cut up and dipped into fudge – fudge that I actually know how to make.
What a great write-up! I was tempted to try my hand at caramels but now, maybe I’ll go for store-bought… Congratulations on the fudge-dipped marshmallows. They must have looked and tasted very festive!
I am still determined to achieve caramel success. There are so many recipes and blog posts about people making delicious caramels that it is clearly possible. After all the holiday goodies are gone I’ll be ready to attempt them again. Maybe for Valentines day?