HELLO everyone. It occurred to me that I’ve not done a sweet recipe for a while and as it’s my training to be a pastry chef, I thought it appropriate to correct this skew towards the savoury realm.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of catering for a group of friends down on the very tip of the Kent coast and visited the town of Broadstairs for the very first time.
What a delightful place it is – a tiny, quintessentially British seaside resort with picturesque little cottages, tea-rooms, ice-cream parlours, the most amazing-looking wide, spotless beach and the requisite mini-golf course and bandstand.
Charles Dickens stayed there many times and, indeed, overlooking the bay is the celebrated Bleak House where he wrote David Copperfield.
The weather was amazing, and everywhere people were enjoying the first flush of summer to the maximum.
It was in passing a little corner sweet shop that I had the idea for this week’s piece. The windows were full with fantastic-looking old-fashioned sweets like sticks of rock, stripey humbugs, candy canes, marshmallows and, there in the middle, a pile of golden, creamy-looking butter fudge.
This reminded me that a few days previously one of our very good customers at the restaurant had made a light-hearted request for fudge with his post-lunch coffee.
I thought it was such a good idea and had resolved to make a batch, but then got waylaid on something else and forgot all about it until wandering past that little sweet shop reminded me and I made a mental note to get on with it as soon as I returned. So, we’re having a crack at fudge.
A classic British sweetmeat, fudge is reckoned to have originated in Scotland, where it was, and still is occasionally, known as tablet, because of its way of setting into a firm brick when cooled.
It is more brittle and less chewy than toffee, which is made with almost the same ingredients, but instead, what we’re after here is for crystallisation to occur (something you definitely DON’T want with toffee!!) and for the fudge to take on a smooth, granular texture, which melts on the tongue. The recipe is simplicity itself, but the actual process can be tricky, often tiring, and quite hot. Not one for the novice, but for anyone who likes cooking and feels confident around boiling sugar, it’s a great way to spend half an hour, and the results can be spectacular. Note that this recipe is for the harder, grainier type of fudge. I’ll leave the soft, chewy variant for another time. So let’s steel ourselves for a spot of hard work and get to grips with the wonders of fudge.
This recipe makes enough for about 30 small pieces
Recipe:
2 tins condensed milk
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
500g unrefined golden caster sugar
100g salted butter
A non-stick cake tin or roasting dish about 20cm square or a tin of the same size lined with baking parchment
A sugar thermometer (you can find these in good kitchen shops)
A wooden spoon
Put all the ingredients into a heavy-based saucepan and heat very, very gently, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has melted, then raise the heat and boil the mixture, stirring constantly to avoid catching.
It will caramelise unequally, but you must persevere, stirring all the time, until the mixture is a lovely golden caramel colour and reaches the soft-ball stage (about 116C).
Then, remove the pan from the heat and continue to stir until the mixture is dull and smooth.
Pour immediately into your tin and allow to cool completely before cutting and serving.
