Fudging it

Yes, kids, it's that time of year. Time for me to try three batches of fudge before one of them comes out. But the one that came out so far was oh-so-fantastic.

I have engineered the formula for fudge by combining the old Hershey cocoa recipe (look it up) with Alton Brown's recipe (look it up) and adding some of my own magic. The formula is:

4 / 2 / 1 plus 3/4 (/drumroll)

That is: 4 parts sugar, 2 parts dairy (I like half and half), 1 part flavoring a la cocoa powder, all by volume. I put 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of half and half, and a half cup of cocoa powder (a proprietary blend of brands) plus 1/8 teaspoon salt in a 4 quart pan and stir it all till it looks homogeneous. You can also use baking chocolate as long as it's 100% cocoa, which obviously won't look homogeneous until it melts. Put it on the stove on 5 and keep stirring until it just begins to boil. You have to stir to make sure that the temperature is even throughout the syrup - you don't want it burning on the bottom and cool on the top. Once it starts to boil, QUIT stirring and just watch. It'll hit softball stage in about 10 minutes or so (I'll try to post pictures of that later). When it gets to softball, CAREFULLY pull the pot off of the heat (not needed if you use gas, you lucky dog) and add a teaspoon of vanilla and 3 tablespoons of butter - that's the plus 3/4 from the formula. Cool to about 130F, then beat with a wooden spoon until it starts to get thick. I like to slowly stir and see how fast the fudge fills back where the spoon was. Once it starts to set (the beating of the spoon is what makes it set, believe it or not) you have to move fast to spread the fudge into a pan. If you want to add nuts (pecans, of course), you can add them in the middle of the beating process.

I have tried once replacing the 1 part of cocoa powder with white chocolate, alas with poor results. I'll try again and post if I can get that to work.