“I want FUDGE!” was the note scrawled at the bottom of last week’s grocery list. No other information, just that emphatic remark in bold pencil.
Since the entry was made in cursive writing, I correctly assumed that it was my husband who WANTED FUDGE, not the smaller household citizens (who I don’t even think know what fudge is). I suppose since his comment was on the grocery list, I could have interpreted this to mean “Please buy fudge” instead of “Please buy ingredients to make fudge.” At the time, I lazily thought it would be easier to make it at home rather than get in the car and drive out to buy some. Plus, it would be a candy-making experiment (according to the kids)!
Chocolate, sugar, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla. How hard can this be? A quick internet trip to the recipe site of my favorite “scientist-chef,” Alton Brown, and I was prepared to give the fudge cooking a try.
SUNDAY, BATCH 1: Uneventful cooking and cooling processes---or so I thought, with zero previous fudge attempts in my culinary past. After the requisite “setting up” time in the pan, we ended up with a thick chocolate sand confection. “Delicious!” said the little one as I pitched the rest of it in the garbage. Checking the directions again, I think the error on this batch was not enough stirring before the final drop in the pan.
MONDAY, BATCH 2: Cooking and cooling as before, but with a twist at the end: a ride in the Kitchenaid mixer---a minor violation, since I was supposed to hand-stir. I quizzically monitored the mixer to watch for the fudge liquid to lose its sheen; after others agreed that we were clueless as to what exactly we needed to see, we plopped it in the final pan and waited. And waited. And waited. Then we committed a major violation by shoving it in the refrigerator to see if it would harden up. The next morning we had thick chocolate icing (hey, at least it was no longer gritty like Batch 1). “Delicious!” said the little one as he spread it between two toasted waffles and I tossed the remainder in the garbage. Another recipe review suggests I may not have precisely monitored the high cook temperature and the low cooling temperature. Damn my $5 thermometer!
TUESDAY, BATCH 3: This time I hovered over the pan like I was splitting the atom. High temperature---OK! Cooling temperature---UH OH! I apparently let it cool just a little past the critical point, because it was already setting up while in the pot. I knew I had to stir, so I frantically started pulling the taffy-like blob out, and boy was it stuck. It was like I had melted a dozen Sugar Daddies in the pot. With one hand pushing the pot-handle away and the other hand pulling the sticky blob toward me, I got exactly what I should have expected: the blob popped loose and the saucepan snapped back with terminal velocity and cracked me straight in the face.
My initial reaction was to clamp the dishtowel to my head, to contain the blood and loose flaps of skin and bone that certainly must be hanging loose. Through my haze, I heard my husband casually asking “Are you OK?” to which I immediately replied “NO.” I expected aid at that point but all I got was another “Are you OK?” to which I again replied “NO!” Little frightened children then ran over to inquire about me and I shooed them away (lest they see my mangled face and keel over immediately). I tentatively peeked at the dishtowel to confirm blood loss and finally someone arrived with an icepack. “Is my nose broken?” I asked; there was a very long pause and finally my husband said “Uh, I don’t think so. But you might have some shards of the pan in that cut.” With that diagnosis, it was back to the fudge before the batch was a complete loss.
While I held the ice to my face, my husband attempted to get it out of the pot and into the pan. This was no small feat since the glob was now proceeding smartly into final set-up mode. Once he had it in the pan, it seemed clear that this batch at least would harden into the normal fudge format. Whew! I turned again to ask how my face looked. “Let me finish chewing this,” he answered, a giant piece of maybe-fudge in his mouth. “OK, now I can check you.” Gee, thanks, honey. Thirty minutes later, I had a butterfly bandage over the gash in my nose and two bruise-lumps blooming on my head.
The final analysis? The little one said “Well, I thought all the fudges were delicious, Mommy,” as if that made up for the fact that I was perhaps permanently disfigured. My husband ate a piece of the Batch-3 product and said “Yep, that’s fudge. But it makes too big of a mess in the kitchen.” The last citizen in the household said “I like brownies, fudge is weird.” And that was it.
Since the entry was made in cursive writing, I correctly assumed that it was my husband who WANTED FUDGE, not the smaller household citizens (who I don’t even think know what fudge is). I suppose since his comment was on the grocery list, I could have interpreted this to mean “Please buy fudge” instead of “Please buy ingredients to make fudge.” At the time, I lazily thought it would be easier to make it at home rather than get in the car and drive out to buy some. Plus, it would be a candy-making experiment (according to the kids)!
Chocolate, sugar, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla. How hard can this be? A quick internet trip to the recipe site of my favorite “scientist-chef,” Alton Brown, and I was prepared to give the fudge cooking a try.
SUNDAY, BATCH 1: Uneventful cooking and cooling processes---or so I thought, with zero previous fudge attempts in my culinary past. After the requisite “setting up” time in the pan, we ended up with a thick chocolate sand confection. “Delicious!” said the little one as I pitched the rest of it in the garbage. Checking the directions again, I think the error on this batch was not enough stirring before the final drop in the pan.
MONDAY, BATCH 2: Cooking and cooling as before, but with a twist at the end: a ride in the Kitchenaid mixer---a minor violation, since I was supposed to hand-stir. I quizzically monitored the mixer to watch for the fudge liquid to lose its sheen; after others agreed that we were clueless as to what exactly we needed to see, we plopped it in the final pan and waited. And waited. And waited. Then we committed a major violation by shoving it in the refrigerator to see if it would harden up. The next morning we had thick chocolate icing (hey, at least it was no longer gritty like Batch 1). “Delicious!” said the little one as he spread it between two toasted waffles and I tossed the remainder in the garbage. Another recipe review suggests I may not have precisely monitored the high cook temperature and the low cooling temperature. Damn my $5 thermometer!
TUESDAY, BATCH 3: This time I hovered over the pan like I was splitting the atom. High temperature---OK! Cooling temperature---UH OH! I apparently let it cool just a little past the critical point, because it was already setting up while in the pot. I knew I had to stir, so I frantically started pulling the taffy-like blob out, and boy was it stuck. It was like I had melted a dozen Sugar Daddies in the pot. With one hand pushing the pot-handle away and the other hand pulling the sticky blob toward me, I got exactly what I should have expected: the blob popped loose and the saucepan snapped back with terminal velocity and cracked me straight in the face.
My initial reaction was to clamp the dishtowel to my head, to contain the blood and loose flaps of skin and bone that certainly must be hanging loose. Through my haze, I heard my husband casually asking “Are you OK?” to which I immediately replied “NO.” I expected aid at that point but all I got was another “Are you OK?” to which I again replied “NO!” Little frightened children then ran over to inquire about me and I shooed them away (lest they see my mangled face and keel over immediately). I tentatively peeked at the dishtowel to confirm blood loss and finally someone arrived with an icepack. “Is my nose broken?” I asked; there was a very long pause and finally my husband said “Uh, I don’t think so. But you might have some shards of the pan in that cut.” With that diagnosis, it was back to the fudge before the batch was a complete loss.
While I held the ice to my face, my husband attempted to get it out of the pot and into the pan. This was no small feat since the glob was now proceeding smartly into final set-up mode. Once he had it in the pan, it seemed clear that this batch at least would harden into the normal fudge format. Whew! I turned again to ask how my face looked. “Let me finish chewing this,” he answered, a giant piece of maybe-fudge in his mouth. “OK, now I can check you.” Gee, thanks, honey. Thirty minutes later, I had a butterfly bandage over the gash in my nose and two bruise-lumps blooming on my head.
The final analysis? The little one said “Well, I thought all the fudges were delicious, Mommy,” as if that made up for the fact that I was perhaps permanently disfigured. My husband ate a piece of the Batch-3 product and said “Yep, that’s fudge. But it makes too big of a mess in the kitchen.” The last citizen in the household said “I like brownies, fudge is weird.” And that was it.