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Vanilla fudge

Ingredients

  • 1 tin condensed milk
  • 8 tablespoons warm water
  • 5 oz butter, cut into small chunks
  • 1.25 lbs caster sugar
  • 3 tablespoons Lyle’s Golden Syrup
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/4 - 1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
  • butter or olive oil to grease tin

Instructions

Grease a 10" square tin (or one of similar capacity) and set aside. 

Place condensed milk in a large thick bottomed pan (I use a 5 quart dutch oven) together with the butter, sugar, syrup and salt. Use the warm water to rinse out the condensed milk tin and add that too.

Heat gently — do not let the mixture boil — until all the sugar has dissolved. Check for grittiness on the bottom of the pan: once it has all gone then you may increase the heat. You want to raise the temperature to what is known as “soft ball” to those using candy thermometers, or 240F (115C) to the rest of us.

(Crucial tip if you live at altitude: for every 1000’ above sea level reduce the target temperature by 2F, e.g. at around 5,500’ here in Boulder, CO “soft ball” is 229F. Generally have been taking it up to ~232F or more as below that still seems to yield softer than I prefer. See https://bakingwithaltitude.com/high-altitude-candy-making-tips/ for more details.)

This is obviously pretty damn hot and since the fudge mixture is very sticky be careful while stirring it — you do not want to end up slopping any of it onto yourself. And you will need to stir things periodically to prevent the fudge from catching on the bottom of the pan as it heats up. Expect the mixture to be bubbling away quite vigorously and darkening in color as it gets hotter.

Once it’s reached “soft ball” stage you can test that it will set properly by dropping a little into some ice cold water. If it forms a firm soft ball that holds its shape you’re golden. If you don’t have a thermometer to use at all the test-in-ice-cold-water trick is a reasonable surrogate, but until you have an eye for what “ready” fudge looks like it can be an exercise in frustration as you try and wait and try and wait to get fudge that will set. I digress…

Of course, if you’re feeling confident in your thermometer you can just press ahead. I know from experience that mine is trustworthy so no longer bother messing about dropping hot liquid fudge into water.

If you’re at all in doubt about the fudge being ready wait a little longer as firm-extra-well-set fudge is much nicer than sloppy-will-not-ever-set fudge.

Once ready, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly (just a few minutes) and then add in your vanilla essence. Beat the mixture hard until it starts to get stiff, then quickly pour into your tin. Allow to set a few minutes before cutting into small squares — this is much easier done before the fudge sets completely.

Clotted cream variant

First, make some clotted cream:

  • 32oz heavy cream — cannot be ultra-pasteurized which it turns out almost all of them are. Origin A2 Guernsey Heavy Cream in Whole foods is not though so I used that.
  • Preheat oven to 175-180F (can’t remember what I settled on, probably 175F)
  • Pour the cream into a shallow glass baking dish, it needs to be 1.5-2" deep
  • Bake for 12 hours (!!)
  • Remove from oven and cool to room temperature (several hours…)
  • Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 8 hours or longer
  • Push aside a corner of the top layer of thickened cream and pour off the underlying whey. You can basically use that like milk if you don’t wish to waste it.
  • Pack the remaining clotted cream into a mason jar or similar. It will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.

To make clotted cream fudge, substitute the evaporated milk with 1 cup of clotted cream. Since it is not sweetened like evaporated milk I added half a cup of Lyle’s Golden Syrup rather than the usual 3 tbsp but not entirely sure that’s necessary, needs some experimentation…

Results were very good although it did seem to need to live in the fridge rather than room temperature despite being taken to at least 232F. Not sure if that was the large amount of syrup or if it needed to go to a higher temperature.

Related: really nice mold

Nutrition

Estimated, per serving

  • Servings: 48
  • Serving size: 1 piece (~1-inch square, standard recipe, not the clotted cream variant)
  • Calories: 100
  • Protein: 1 g
  • Carbs: 17 g
  • Fat: 3 g
  • Saturated fat: 2 g
  • Fiber: 0 g
  • Total sugar: 17 g
  • Sodium: 35 mg