Penuche Fudge

[emb123]

According to American folklore, fudge was discovered by accident when someone was trying to make caramels.
This particular recipe is claimed to go back to the 1920's.

It's very sweet and slightly buttery and has the exact texture and taste of proper home-made fudge. You can't buy fudge this good in the shops (not round here anyway!). It's sort of a halfway between tablet and gooey fudge that you buy in the shops. It has a slightly more buttery (or even butterscotch) taste than tablet but has something of the texture although it melts in your mouth as you eat it.

Just off to make some more. Have made this bombproof recipe many times and have been thinking about making it again for ages. The cravings are getting to me....

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Penuche Fudge
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This is a rich and very sweet fudge and it's a traditional recipe. I've made this several times and it's wonderful! (but very hard to stop eating )

3 cups lightly packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup evaporated milk, not lowfat
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans (Optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla


Butter/grease a 9-inch cake pan and set aside.

Lightly butter the sides of a medium-large saucepan.

Fill your sink with a couple of inches of cold water to cool the pan once the fudge is ready to be cooled.

In the saucepan, combine sugars, salt, evap milk (substitute cream if you wish) and butter; cook over medium heat, stirring, until sugars dissolve.

Continue cooking on a medium-high heat - do let it build up to temperature slowly, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking (or burning on the bottom), until mixture reaches the soft-ball stage (236F on a candy/sugar thermometer).

Remove from heat and let cool in the sink, without stirring at all, until the bottom of the pan is lukewarm and you can touch it; the mixture will be about 110F on a candy thermometer. Takes a good ten minutes.

With a wooden spoon and a VERY strong arm, beat until mixture loses its gloss, then quickly stir in the nuts (if using) and vanilla. It will be incredibly stiff to stir.

Pour into prepared pan and when completely cool - absolutely the instant it loses it's gloss, get it into the pan to set, fast!

Cut into squares when cold.

Makes 1-1/2 lbs fudge.

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I prefer fudge not to be soft, doughy & chewy but rather to have just a slight hint of firmness or texture so I heat to soft ball and keep it there or even a whisker over before removing from heat.

I also prefer plain fudge without the nuts.

It freezes very well too.

[emb123]

Having just made it up I can add here the weights of the ingredients (I used electronic scales and the weights are of the amounts I used, not by the book conversions).

555g Demerara Sugar
205g (white) Granulated Sugar
1/2 tsp salt
245g Evaporated Milk
32g (cheap) butter

approx 1/2 tsp artificial Vanilla flavouring (which is much stronger than the real thing).
1 Tsp of Real Vanilla essence is much better but couldn't find mine.

[sassylass]

omg, my mother used to make a fabulous cake with penuche icing mmmmmm I'll have to try and recreate it now, thanks for the recipe!

[emb123]

omg, my mother used to make a fabulous cake with penuche icing mmmmmm I'll have to try and recreate it now, thanks for the recipe!

Enjoy!
Important thing with fudge is the temperature. If you don't get it hot enough it will be runny, too hot and it will be hard.

Although I tried many times using the 'soft ball' technique in water I never had any success until I bought a sugar thermometer. If you like fudge (who doesn't!) worth shelling out for - they're quite pricey though. Last time I looked they were around £5. I keep mine attached to the inside of the saucepan with the bulb sitting in the sugar mixture as I'm bringing it up to temperature.

Not sure whether strictly speaking you need to or not but I really take my time getting it up to temperature too - I hover over it and stir occasionally for a good 10 - 15 minutes or more.

have fun!