Fudge. Just, "Fudge"

I am amazed that I haven't ever once before commented on my worship of fudge. I adore it, I love it to pieces, I love it with my mouth - until it is gone. Then I love them with my tummy and then I love it with my colon. I could continue but this is a food blog and too much intestinal chit-chat brings the tone down. By about 5 cm, just below the stomach - which is really where we should stay.

Fudge. Swoon.

Suddenly I am all switched on to making fudge. Somehow I don't think that I ever actually recognised that I could make the fudge! It felt a bit like chocolate to me. Chocolate just comes from the Valrhona factory. I can manipulate it and cook with it, but I can't create chocolate! I'm not some sort of chocolate God. I am just a disciple. This is how I felt about fudge too. A disciple in a happy, chubby, pagan conga line.

But, but, I can make fudge. I can. And I have been. What started this? A recipe of course, and a picture. A nice picture of beautifully cut dark chocolate squares looking like they were mixed by virgins and sliced by Fabio.

I slice your fudge Chica....

And I immediately wanted to make that fudge. I was going to have to do it without the virgins (insert appropriate virgin jokes here) and Fabio (no jokes about Fabio, I will not stand for it), but I would still do it.

First batch - ok. It separated. For the non cooking types let me illuminate that using "West Side Story". The mix is largely milky and white (the Jets) and you have to add dark chocolate which is very sexy and tempestuous (The Sharks). At first you wouldn't even consider putting them together - how could it ever work, they are too different. But then you see that Maria and Tony love each other and you are filled with hope, and so when you try a small amount it looks bella. But then you pour in all the chocolate and it's the big fight scene at the end and 'Nardo is dead and Maria is crying and the fudge is lumpy.

Wow that worked way better than I thought it would.

So. This time. Since I now have a small child at school I have become alive to the kinds of demands that schools place on parents. Particularly the parents of preps, the youngest kids in the school. We are, by definition, new meat. If we have no other children then we are happy and excited and willing to be part of the school and every kind of fund raising event they have. If we have four children then we are completely over it. I have one and I am in - boots and all.

Mothers Day. That is tomorrow. In a delicious twist of irony, myself and lots of other mothers donated things that we had made, to be sold as mothers day gifts for other mothers, and also ourselves. We give the children money to buy presents for us, made by each other. It's almost lovely. Almost.

I made fudge. Lots and lots of fudge. Fudge is a great thing for cake stalls, packed with sugar and gluten free. Honestly all the gluten free and nut free and egg free stuff that people make now. It's the dawn of a new, more allergic, era.

You should make these. Whoever you are.

Pistachio and white chocolate fudge. 
Taste.com.au

• 2 cups (440g) caster sugar
• 1 1/2 cups (375ml) thick cream
• 125g white chocolate, broken up
• 2 tbs liquid glucose*
• 30g butter
• 1/2 cup shelled pistachio nuts, roughly chopped

Combine all the ingredients, except the pistachios, in a pot and stir until the sugar dissolves. Then cook the fuck out of it. Until it reaches "soft ball" stage. This does not involve your husband/partner or any male at all. It's when you drop a small amount of mix into a glass of cold water and it all clings to itself for comfort. In a "soft ball". This might take up to 20 mins - the cooking. You can also use a sugar thermometer and wait until it gets to around 113 to 118 cel.
 

Looks like spew.

It looks a bit like chuck, don't worry about that. It especially looks like chuck when you add the pistachios - they give it that smack of authenticity that undigested peas give to actual vomit.

A word re the temperature of this mix. It is fucking hot. So So So HOT. Do not, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES try to eat a bit off a spoon, or dip your finger in it. Do not do this. Someone that I know did this once. And was sorry.

Once it gets to soft ball stage tip it into a lined 20 cm square tin and leave it to set. It will do that poste haste.

Pop it in the fridge. I took it out and left it for an hour before I cut it. It is the extra hard sort of fudge and needs a bit of time to warm up.

Second fudge. Yes I made two. Was I trying too hard? You be the judge.

Dark chocolate and Ginger Fudge. 
I found a few versions of this, it is Nigella's recipe originally, she of the food porn. But her recipe is woefully underwritten, this person has made it ever so easy - http://foodieboomboom.wordpress.com

200g dark chocolate
395g can of sweetened condensed milk
1 tightly packed cup brown sugar (about 230g)
100g unsalted butter
Preserved stem ginger

This recipe makes the smooth and soft kind of fudge. The kind that your teeth sink into and which is soft and malleable on your tongue. Oops - just aroused myself.

This recipe needs all the ingredients ready to go as it is pretty speedy. The ginger part is really up to you - I could have added more - I used about 15 pieces of chopped crystallized ginger in the mix and more on the top.

Prepare a 20cm tin for this too. Line it. etc. Ok melt your butter over a low heat and then add the condensed milk. 

I love condensed milk, it was one of those things that I used to eat from the tin when I was a kid. This makes me sound like some sad wartime urchin, but I was powerless. I still am a bit and have to get it into the pot extra quick before 8 year old Bridgette grabs a spoon and does something that 40 year old Bridgette will regret.

Really mix the two together well. Add your sugar and once that has dissolved turn the mix up and let it bubble gently for 2 mins. Gently, I said! Gently. Like you're patting an unpredictable cat.

Now drop in all the chocolate and mix it well - your arm may be sore, your brow may be furrowed, you might be needing the toilet, but stir, stir like you never will again! Stir I say!

*Cat has arrived and is headbutting my hands as I type. This is as subtle as he gets. Soon he will lie on the key board. Must finish blog! 

Add the ginger in and don't mess about here as it starts hardening immediately. Tip it into the tin and then smooth. If you're super creative then you might put ginger on top.. like me. If you're not then don't worry we can't all be born with that kind of innate aesthetic.

Who is that visual genius?!

This one went into the fridge for a few hours and then I cut it a bit later, I packaged them together and it really made me think. Why, if this fudge can get along in a cellophane bag, why can't people of mixed races, just you know, get along.

Come on people of the world, let's get our own "cellophane" and work it out.

Insert "Song of Joy"

Also, owing to several family related factors, this weekend which was meant to be "many birthday crammed into one day" was cancelled. This put a bit of a hole in my big plan to make my bro a present. He doesn't want gifts anymore - he has everything he could wish for in life. My family is not really big on that sort of socialist bullshit so he was getting presents even if he hated them. So I decided that I would make him a gift and then he would have to love it, no matter how ham fisted it was.

I give you.....

"FRANKENGINGEY"

Moose antlers, duck head, moose body, echidna as a tail and flower feet. Those are gingerbread bolts at the joins. He was so excited. That's how I'm going to interpret the look that was on his face anyway.