4C sugar
12 oz evaporated milk
1 C butter
3 C chocolate chips (2 11 oz bags - I use Guittard: one semi-sweet and one milk)
1 bag walnuts
1. Mix together sugar and milk in a large, heavy saucepan (the sugar/milk will double in volume).
2. Put on just-below-medium heat. You don't want to bring to a boil too quickly, or you will scorch the sugar/milk and get grainy fudge. And DON'T STIR!!
3. Once the sugar/milk begins a rolling boil (in my hands, this happens at 216ºF), continue to boil for exactly 11 minutes (in my hands, the temperature rises to about 225ºF). DON'T STIR!!
4. Take off heat and add the butter and chocolate chips, and mix vigorously (it's a bit of a workout). If you did the heating part right, the mixture will be really shiny. If you scorched the sugar/milk, or stirred while heating, it will be grainy. Some people say to keep mixing until you get a satin sheen. I've done this or not, with little difference in the result.
5. Stir in the chopped walnuts.
6. Put in a buttered 9X13 pan.
7. Let set overnight.
K, this is the recipe I use! It's Haily Robert's recipe! Here's the thing that gets me - as I've researched, the "experts" say to let it cool to 110 before stirring, so I've tried that. In doing this I get grainyness. When I've made it as it says I get the oil separation. Have you had it separate before? What causes that?
ReplyDeleteIs this the recipe that Mark uses? You guys gave us some a couple years ago and it was heavenly.
Oh yeah, how well do you mix the milk & sugar? Do you just combine it or try to get the sugar to partially dissolve?
ReplyDeleteWhen I make it as is, it gets kind of lumpy, grainy, separated. Would that be from heating it too quickly?
ReplyDeleteEmily, the separated, grainy fudge is what Mark got the first several times he made this. (And you're right, it IS Haily R's recipe!) We wasted a lot of butter and choc chips! But, being the scientist that he is, he would just wash out the pot and try again, taking "lab notes" as he went. He decided he was heating it too fast and boiling on too high of heat. he boils it just below med, as he said, and doesn't touch it the whole time. At exactly 11 mintues, he pulls it off and stirs in the butter in, gets it mostly melted, then stirs in guittard choc chips. (Crappy chocolate can also give you a bad texture). And as far as mixing the milk and sugar, I think he just gets it all stirred together, then turns on the burner.
ReplyDeleteYou can also use white choc. for a white fudge, which is good with oreos stirred in!
ANyway, if you want, you could come over and make a batch with Mark and see how he does it. He's gotten it to the point where it turns out every time.
Thanks for sharing your recipe and blog site. I love trying new things and collecting recipes. This is great!
ReplyDeleteWoohoo! Success! I had to try again. I didn't stir at all (I didn't used to stir, then I started to????) I also heated it up more slowly - that seemed to make ALL the difference! Perfectly creamy fudge! I'll send pictures if you want to add them to the recipe! THANKS MARK & HAILEY!!!!
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ReplyDeleteSince that was the same problem (heating too fast) with my toffee - I wonder if needing to use just below med, rather than med, is related to our altitude. Don't we boil more rapidly at our higher altitude?
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this recipe...
ReplyDeleteAnd one more comment (from Mark). I noticed that if you pour the sugar/milk mixture into another bowl (without scraping the residue on the bottom and sides) and then add the butter/chips and stir, the fudge is even creamier!
ReplyDeleteThis way you leave behind the small amount of what I think of as seed crystals for graininess...
You're right! It's soooo good! Thanks for sharing the recipe. I used 255 g of dark chocolate, if that helps anyone.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to write above that I made HALF of the recipe, so if you did the whole thing you'd need around 510g (all the sites I visited had different gram measurements for cups of chocolate chips, but this one worked for us)
ReplyDeleteI've been making this for Christmas the last few years. This year I tried putting a cup of the Guittard mint chips in and that was very good! After they melted in with the rest of the chips and it had cooled a little, I stirred in the other cup of chips so there would be mint chunks. I think it may have been a little too minty, but still good. So maybe 1 1/4 bag semi sweet, plus 3/4 back mint?
ReplyDeleteI also found this year that the Guittard melting chocolates work great!!! I don't think they taste as good as the regular choc chips from the store when eaten alone, but they taste great in fudge. I'm still using half milk, half semi-sweet.