Fudgemas

Change has come into my life since last year. I have a chronic health condition, I moved after 13 years in the same apartment, and I went home for two weeks at Christmas because work was closed for a week and I stacked a week of vacation on top of that. Because I was out of town at a time when I am normally here, another change happened, and it upset several of my friends:

I didn't make fudge last year.

I'm not a candy maker. I don't make the kind of fudge that people talk about and look forward to because it's so delicious that oh, God, it's like a chocolate bird laid a chocolate egg in your mouth. No, instead, since 2010 I have made the kind of fudge that makes my friends look forward to how bad it's going to turn out and how bad I'm going to feel about it. These adventures include peanut butter fudge that never set and stayed liquid forever, Velveeta fudge that sweated out an undefined liquid and turned spongy, fudge that was somehow sticky if left out of the fridge too long, fudge that was flakey, fudge that was gritty, fudge that actually turned out ok, and one constant: every year I make fudge from the Carnation Famous Fudge boxed kit, and this year my friends were annoyed that a Christmas tradition came and went.

Well, friends, it's Christmas in January, I guess, because guess what I did today?



I bought the kid in early December, but just didn't get around to making it before I flew out of town, so I've just been walking past the box as it sits on the side table by my kitchen counter, silently daring me to tear it open.

As I said, change has come into my life, and that change affected this year's fudge process in two ways:

1) I have a different stove. For ten years I've made fudge on the same stove, but now I would be using a different stove.

2) I have different pots. When I moved into my first apartment in 1998, my mom gave me her pots and pans, which she and my dad had received for a wedding gift in 1970. I've replaced some of them over the years (the frying pan went first, because Dad warped it by constantly sticking it in cold water as soon as he was done cooking in it to make sure nothing stuck to the pan), and when I moved this summer I realized that the nonstick coating was finally starting to come off and maybe it was time for these 49 year old pans to go. That means that, for the first time ever, I would be making the fudge in a new pot.

Would the change in my life lead to changes in fudge outcomes?

Things started out relatively unchanged. I brought the butter, sugar, and condensed milk to a boil, and stirred vigorously:



This happens every year.

I removed the mixture from heat, and there was a slight delay of a few seconds while I tore open the marshmallow bag, dumped them in, then tore open the chocolate chip bag and dumped those in. After that, I stirred until both were melted, and something happened that has never happened before any time that I've made the famous fudge kit:



The fudge came together into a ball, like dough. Every other year I have to pour it into the pan and then scrape the rest off the sides, but this year it all came out in one piece, kind of the consistency of warm taffy, like I imagine a melted Tootsie Roll would. Recipes online always say that fudge has to be cooked until it reaches the soft ball stage, and had I somehow done that? Did my fudge spontaneously form a soft ball?

Was such a thing even possible?

Had change come to my fudge making?

I poured it into a round cake pan (Not the pan I usually use, but since I was changing everything else I figured why not change the dish it cools in, too?), smoothed the top with a spatula, and put it in the fridge to cool. Two hours later, I pulled it out, and it looked like it usually does on good years:



Not glossy, but not gritty and wrinkled like an old pioneer woman's face.

I lifted the foil out of the dish and let the fudge sit for twenty minutes, because I feel like one of the other reasons it seems hard and gritty sometimes is that I slice it when it's rock hard and half frozen, and I needed to just be patient and let it rest. See how much I'm changing and growing as a person? Anyway, I sliced, and got this:



It's pretty good. It's solid, creamy, not gritty, and tastes fine. It's not the fudge on the box, but it never will be because the fudge on the box is made of wax and modeling clay and sprayed with oil by a food stylist so that it photographs well.

Merry Fudgemas, friends.

One fudge, two fudge, brown fudge... puce? Is that puce fudge?

As I have for the past seven years, I once again embarked on a fudge making adventure in my kitchen. As in past years, I decided to return once again to the Carnation Famous Fudge Kit:



but I decided to add two other fudges this year.

One was suggested by my friend Keri, who has told me every year, "OH MY GOD, JOEL, JUST MAKE THE FUDGE FROM THE JAR OF MARSHMALLOW FLUFF! IT'S SO EASY!" I've heard that song before, but I figured I might as well give it a try this year.



I also decided to try something completely out of the box and possibly insane: Unicorn Fudge.

Remember back in April when Starbucks rolled out the Unicorn Frappuccino? It was vile and disgusting, but also pink and sparkly, and when it came out I read some listicle online that said, "20 Other Unicorn Foods to Try" or something like that, and right in the middle was Unicorn Fudge.

I should save this recipe for December, I thought, and I did.

The morning started as it usually does, with me laying out the ingredients and kitchen tools before my tiny, sparkly, kitchen god, who hangs above the stove:





I used to only hang him up at Christmas, usually on the day I made fudge, but last year or the year before I got tired of putting him back in the box and was worried that his glitter might flake off from repeated handling, so now I just leave him up year round. With my morning prayers accomplished, I got to work on the Unicorn Fudge:



The recipe is fairly easy, and takes place in the microwave, which means you have to watch it very carefully. If you melt chocolate in the microwave, there's a strong chance it will crystallize or burn, so you have to microwave in short bursts and stir a lot in between. I didn't know if that was true for white chocolate, too:



since white chocolate is a vile, waxy imitation of real chocolate, but I decided to be careful just the same. Once the chocolate, heavy cream, and vanilla were melted and blended together:



I was ready to try coloring it. I wasn't sure how much to use, but it turns out to be way more than you think. My first shot, which was about a half teaspoon of purple coloring, produced this flat mauve:



and I ended up using a lot more until it got to a color I deemed dark enough. Once that was done, I poured it into a dish, then sprinkled the top with rainbow sprinkles and gold sanding sugar, which I opted for over edible glitter or luster dust:



I pressed lightly on the top so that the sprinkles and sugar would stick into the fudge, but when I took it out of the dish later I still ended up with sprinkles all over the counter:



but that's getting ahead of the story. Before I could cut up any of the fudge, I had to finish making it, and that meant moving on to the fluff bottle fudge.

The fluff bottle fudge calls for a lot of sugar and a lot of butter:



so much so that I feel like I should apologize to my coworkers, who are (hopefully) going to eat this. The recipe is very similar to the fudge kit fudge, in that you cook down the sugar mixture for a few minutes, then add the chocolate chips (more sugar):



and then the entire jar of marshmallow fluff (still more sugar):



and then spread it in a pan:



It looked good, but it made a lot more than I thought it would, and it ended up being pretty thick. It also said that it needed to set up at room temperature, not in the refrigerator, which made me suspicious. I do what the recipe says, though, so I put a lid on it and set it over out of the way on a counter for the rest of the morning.

The Famous Fudge Kit hasn't changed much since last year:



and they continue not to put a little tray in it like they used to, so you still have to go ahead and dirty your own dish. It cooks a lot like the fluff jar fudge, but with less sugar and butter:



and it says to dump the chocolate and marshmallows in at the same time instead of separately:



and when I finished this year I had a bad feeling about it:



because it looked grainy. That usually means it's gritty and dry, not smooth and creamy, but at this point I was pretty tired of making fudge, so I figured, Whatever, just put it in the fridge and start the cleanup. Eventually, all the fudge had allegedly set:



and then I sliced it up.



From left to right:

Unicorn Fudge: Actually good. It's creamy, tastes sort of vanilla-ish and not too much like white chocolate, and it just looks kind of fun. It might be good for a kid's birthday party or something.

Marshmallow Fluff Jar Fudge: This is too sweet for me. Other people might like it, especially now that it's firmed up a little more. I might have cut it a little too early in that photo.

Famous Fudge Kit Fudge: Look how well it turned out this year. LOOK AT IT.

This year, the Famous Fudge Kit and I are at peace.

A Tale of Two Fudgies

It's December, and my holiday traditions are in full swing. I just did the Jingle Bell Run this weekend, I've already started fielding concerned calls about being all alone at Christmas (I'm fine, everybody, I swear; I have something planned for every single day that we are off from work), I've misplaced the ice scraper for my car and will go buy a new one knowing that this will make the old one appear, and I bought the Carnation Famous Fudge Kit for my yearly adventure in kitchen masochism.

Before we walk through the inevitable disappointment of opening this year's box:



(why do I take a new picture of the box every year?), I want to take a minute to talk about last year's fudge. As you may recall, I made three kinds to take to work with me: the fudge kit, my Uncle Mike's pumpkin spice fudge, and Velveeta fudge.

I really need to explain why you should never make or eat Velveeta fudge, no matter how many family members or old ladies in the grocery store swear by it.

The fudge kit fudge turned out the best that this stupid box has ever turned out for me. That includes this year, which we'll get to in a minute. People at work ate it, but no one talked about it being great fudge or delicious or anything. They ate it the same way that people in our office will eventually eat any food that you leave in the breakroom, but no one seemed to enjoy it. People did seem to enjoy the pumpkin spice fudge. They ate it quickly, except for the people who don't like peanut butter and didn't eat any of it, and mentioned without prompting that it was tasty.

And then there was the Velveeta fudge.

No one ate the Velveeta fudge. Even I didn't eat the Velveeta fudge after the one piece to evaluate it for the blog entry. Over the course of the week, though, something happened to it. It started out soft, but by the end of the week it somehow got softer and less substantial, even though we were keeping it in the office fridge. It got almost spongy, but still looked the same, and then it started... discorporating? Dissolving? I don't know the word for what happened to it, but it began to leak an odorless clear liquid, and at the end of the week I threw it away along with its container, just in case it was cursed.

Do not make the Velveeta fudge, even for your enemies.

Maybe don't make them the Carnation fudge, either.

I decided last year that the trick to making the fudge kit is not to care about making the fudge kit. If you follow all of the instructions to the letter and second, the kit doesn't work. If you half-ass your way through it, though, you get something passable, like my mom, my friend Elizabeth, my friend Bernadatte, and me last year. It's not the best fudge you ever had in your life, but it's passably decent. This year I approached it the same way. I boiled the sugar and milk mix:



dumped in the chocolate chips and marshmallows, and then spread it in the pan, and just like every year I could tell immediately that it looked grainy and choppy and like an old pioneer woman's face:



I put it in the refrigerator to set, and got to work on my friend Jim's fudge recipe.

Jim sent me his recipe after I liked a photo on Facebook of the fudge houses he made. His fudge turns out so well that he pours it into silicone molds and makes objects out of it. He swore that I would be able to follow it without trouble, and at this point I would try any fudge recipe if it looked even halfway promising. I made fudge last year out of processed cheese food and powdered sugar, for God's sake. Does that seem like the kind of thing that a person who is afraid to take chances on fudge recipes does? No, it does not.

I am no longer afraid of any fudge recipe.

I have stared into the Velveeta fudge abyss, and the Velveeta fudge abyss has stared into me also.

Not that Jim's recipe was an abyss. It actually was really easy, just like he said. It started with heating up light corn syrup, chocolate chips, and condensed milk:



and then, when it was melted:



I removed it from the heat, stirred in the vanilla, and then sifted in powdered sugar.

I also screamed, "THIS IS THE FUDGE! THIS IS THE FUDGE ON THE BOX!" because it was. It was glossy and smooth and poured easily and I could even smooth the top. It was like thick frosting. I've been fooled before, though, so I tried to keep my hopes low as I put it in the fridge and ignored it for two hours. There was every chance that it would crystallize, or remain liquid forever, or do whatever the Velveeta fudge did to itself. Just because it looks good doesn't mean it is good, especially in my fudge workshop.

When I took it out of the fridge, though, it still seemed promising. Note the contract with the fudge kit fudge:



and then note the finished products:



One of those is a gritty, crumbling disappointment that finds new ways to hurt me every time I try to make it, and one of those is a soft, creamy, delicious square of shiny fudge that looks exactly like the perfect fudge on the box that a food stylist spent hours making out of modelling putty and a thin sheen of glycerin. I'm taking them both to work tomorrow, but I bet my coworkers will be a lot more thankful for my friend Jim than they will be for Carnation's stupid box kit.

Now I just need a foolproof recipe for peanut butter fudge.

Fudge, Fudge, And More Fudge

If you know me, you know that I have a holiday tradition of struggling with making fudge.

So many of my friends and family know about my struggle that right around Thanksgiving every year it starts becoming a topic of conversation. People will casually bring it up, giving me the side-eye to see if I will fly into a violent rage, or they might just come right out with it. My Uncle Mike, for example, gave me a piece (OK, I ate like five pieces) of fudge at Thanksgiving this year, and then handed me a printed out recipe. My friend Sharon presented me with the Carnation Famous Fudge Kit, a source of self-esteem damage, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 (but not 2014, when I decided to try to follow a pair of fudge recipes instead), for my birthday this year, but my mom went ahead and made the fudge from it because I was afraid to bring it on an airplane after the TSA went into my checked suitcase and confiscated my shaving cream on my flight to New York.

As has happened often in past years, my mom casually followed the directions while feeding dogs, loading the dishwasher, and talking on the phone and still somehow produced delicious fudge just like on the box while explaining that it's so easy.

Lots of people tell me that fudge is easy.

So many people tell me this that I sometimes think, "I bet this is how Carrie felt at the prom," as I watch their stupid mouths move, but we're getting off topic. Back to the point, everyone I know can make fudge and I seem to have some sort of fudge problem.

I decided this year to make three kinds of fudge: the Famous Fudge Kit, the recipe that my Uncle Mike gave me, and Kraft's allegedly award-winning Velveeta Fudge recipe. Yes, that's right: I made fudge out of something that might be cheese. I am so desperate at this point to make creamy, delicious fudge that if someone told me the secret was clubbing baby seals to death while sobbing children watched, I would be online comparing prices on wooden clubs and plane tickets to rocky Canadian beaches by the end of the day. Compared to that, melting some fake half-cheese product barely registers on my mental radar.

Before I started, I decided to get myself in the mood by decorating the kitchen. In the same way that some cultures have a kitchen deity and a small shrine, I decided that I would summon the spirit of Christmas, and hung my most powerful Christmas talisman above the stove:



My homosexual sexy Christmas merman ornament. God bless us, every one, and God bless the fudge.

I started with Uncle Mike's Pumpkin Spice Fudge, which starts with four cups of white chocolate chips:



and some peanut butter:



I think white chocolate is a vile shadow of real chocolate, but again, baby seals. I will try anything at this point. I microwaved the chips and peanut butter in short bursts, stirring often, and when it was fully blended:



I added the vanilla, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The recipe called for two teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice, but I couldn't find that at the grocery store (I probably missed it by about two weeks) so I used one teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg. It looked a little browner than Uncle Mike's did, but I poured it into the dish:



put it in the refrigerator, and hoped for the best.

Then I moved on to the Velveeta Fudge, which starts with a lot of butter, light corn syrup, and some baker's chocolate:



And then the Velveeta comes in:



So much Velveeta. That gigantic brick of Velveeta was the smallest size block they had at Kroger, and now I have half a block of Velveeta in my refrigerator and no idea what to do with it because I usually only eat real cheese. Somewhere in my slow cooker book there are soup recipes that call for Velveeta, so maybe I can get rid of this that way. Anyway, I added the Velveeta:



and threw it in the microwave. I took it out halfway through cooking to stir, and immediately had grave reservations:



"What's the secret ingredient in your fudge?"

"The bile I accidentally threw up while leaning over a steaming bowl of fake cheese and chocolate bars."

I didn't really throw up, but that doesn't look anything like food that you would want to put in your mouth. Even scarier, this is a two bowl recipe. The other bowl, patiently waiting for the first one to finish in the microwave, contains 32 ounces of powdered sugar:



This must be what a Christmas buffet at Pablo Escobar's house looked like.

Once the first bowl seemed fully melted and blended, I poured it into the second bowl and started mixing. When I decided I was done, it looked a lot like fudge should look:



so I poured it into a baking dish and slid it into the refrigerator.

And then I came to the third fudge recipe:



It wouldn't be Christmas without it.

I was slightly tired of fudge making at this point, and also thought about the way my mom approaches this kit, and decided to just do it, not think about it, and let the chocolate chips fall where they may. I assembled the parts:



heated and stirred until the marshmallows melted, and poured it into the baking dish:



where it came out looking exactly like it has every other year.

I hate you, Carnation Famous Fudge Kit.

I hate you.

Hours later, the fudge was allegedly ready:



From left to right:

Uncle Mike's Pumpkin Spice Fudge: Delicious. Not too much pumpkin, not too much spice. The texture is nice, you can't taste the peanut butter at all, and it's a nice, tasty little bite. Or two. Or five. Shut up.

Kraft Velveeta Fudge: It's not bad. It's a little soft, and a little over sweet. I won't be making it again, but it may appeal to people who like their fudge a little sweeter than most chocolate fudge.

Carnation Famous Fudge Kit: The key, apparently, is to stop caring. It's firm, chocolatey, and not bad. This is the best that kit has ever come out for me.

The baby seals are safe, for now, and the office gets to snack their way through a ton of fudge this week.

"Wait, are you still making fudge this year?"

I don't have a lot of holiday traditions. Some years, I don't even put up the tree, although I lie and tell my mom that I did because otherwise she gets this sad tone in her voice when she asks, "What are you putting your presents under?"

They're on the kitchen counter, Mom, under the ceiling lights.

Merry Christmas.

See how depressing that sounds?

So, even when I don't put up the tree, I lie and say that I did so that people don't worry about me. Even though I don't always decorate, though, I do have one holiday tradition that I've upheld since 2010: Every year, sometime in December, I attempt to make fudge from the Carnation Famous Fudge Kit, and I blog about how it is a constant source of failure, disappointment, and mental self-abuse. This year I thought about not following through with my tradition, because I'm so serious about my diet that people accuse me of an eating disorder and having a pan of fudge in the house would not be conducive to maintaining diet integrity, but then a friend asked me if I was still going to make fudge.

"It's not on my diet."

"Don't keep it. Take it to work."

I hadn't thought of that, but it is the season for giving. Maybe I could give some fudge to the office. I could maintain my holiday tradition, stay on my diet, and do something nice for other people. Everybody wins that way, right? Everybody, that is, except for the makers of the Carnation Famous Fudge Kit, because after I decided last year that the Famous Fudge Kit is impossible to use according to the directions on the box, I decided to break the cycle. This year, I decided that I would forgo kits and gimmicks, and just make fudge from a recipe like normal people do.

My Mom responded to last year's blog entry by going in the complete opposite direction. Apparently having mistaken Mommie Dearest for a tutorial rather than an indictment, my Mom has now purchased the fudge kit two years in a row, and patiently explained to me that her fudge turned out just fine, so it must be me doing it wrong. I love my mom, but her story doesn't hold up under cross-examination; each time her fudge has turned out fine, but each time she has deviated in some way from the instructions on the box. I stand by my point that the fudge on the front of the box is impossible to produce according to the directions on the back.

Since my Mom can apparently spin straw into gold and make actual fudge out of chocolate chips and an overwhelming sense of failure, I asked her for recipes to make fudge this year, and she provided one for peanut butter fudge and one for chocolate. Feeling ambitious, I decided to try both.

I was only partially successful.

The chocolate fudge was very easy and, dare I say it, practically foolproof.

Chocolate Fudge

1 14oz can sweetend condensed milk
3 cups chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts or other nuts (optional)

I left the nuts out, and, since I like the people I work with, I sprung for the expensive Ghiradelli chocolate chips. (I didn't spring too far. They were on sale. Still, it's the thought that counts.) I poured the milk and the chocolate chips into a pot:



set the stove for medium heat, and began to stir and wait for the chips to melt:



As soon as the chips were fully melted, I removed the pot from the heat and stirred in the vanilla:



and my God, did it actually look like fudge. Beautiful, well-made fudge. I spooned it into the pan:



(yes, I used a cheap disposable pan; I'm not taking any of my Pyrex to the office) and put it in the refrigerator for two hours to set. After that, I sliced it, and ate a small piece:



It's good. It's not quite as soft as I like fudge to be, but I bet using milk chocolate chips instead of regular chocolate would make all the difference there. Other than that, it tastes good, and all is right on the chocolate fudge side of the world.

The peanut butter fudge side of the world, on the other hand, is a barren terrain of heartbreak and despair.

Peanut Butter Fudge

1 cup milk
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup peanut butter

Mix milk and sugar and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir continuously for 2.5 minutes. Remove from heat, add vanilla and peanut butter, and stir until blended. Pour into lightly greased 8 by 8 inch pan and set in refrigerator for at least two hours.

I should have been able to do this. I watch Mom do it while I was home for Thanksgiving, and it was almost effortless. Mine looked right until I added the peanut butter, and then it became obvious that something was horribly wrong.



I was on the phone with Kristin at the time.

"This fudge is really, really liquidy. Like, something's wrong with it."

"Can you add something to it? Maybe some flour? Or a little bit of cornstarch?"

"You don't put flour in fudge. I'm going to heat it for another minute and try to cook out some of the moisture."

"Good luck."

It thickened up a little, so I poured it into the pan and hoped for the best:



When I took it out of the refrigerator a couple of hours later, it had firmed a little, but attempting to slice it was a disaster:



That clearly wasn't right, but I wasn't ready to give up. I put it back in the refrigerator, and came back two more hours later:



It sealed the cuts that I made in it.

I invented self-healing peanut butter fudge.

I threw the whole pan away, and decided that maybe I'm just not good at making fudge, but my Mom is.