Hot and bothered

Unseasonal but fab - the Christmas Puddini

The last few days have been spent preparing for a wedding fair this Sunday, where I'll be showing off my lovely wedding favours. I've been getting ahead of myself by making some biscuit dough (currently residing in the freezer, ready to be baked and iced on Saturday), chocolate & peanut-butter cups, fudge and some rather un-seasonal Puddini (truffles decked out as mini-Victorian style round Christmas puddings). The last of the prep complete, I'm now sitting in the very hot and very un-Irish sunshine on my balcony by the sea writing this post. Fortunately there's a lovely sea breeze, which is a life-saver since I spent the morning slaving away over a hot stove making a batch of vanilla fudge.

 

I must confess, although I would happily take a bit of fudge if offered, I was never really mad about the stuff. My earliest introduction to it was probably the Fudge bar in the Cadbury's selection box, which was slightly grainy and gritty, too sugary and never my favourite in the box as a child. And having just sent my mind back to memories of the selection box and the bar, in flies the song from the old fudge bar ad - "a finger of fudge is just enough to give the kids a treat!" - apologies if you now have it stuck in your head too. The cheaper varieties of fudge that I've come across in more recent years (I'm looking at you, Pick 'n Mix fudge) are distinctly lacking in any real flavour and the texture is wrong. Too smooth, a bit claggy and not melty enough. Now, don't get me wrong, I am aware of the wonderful artisan fudges increasingly available out there but my early fudge experiences were off-putting enough for me not to bother trying too many of them.

 

So why on earth did I start making my own fudge, you might ask? Well, the very first batch was for my Mam. She doesn't have quite the sweet tooth that I have, but she loves a bit of fudge. I was the proud recipient of (yet another) baking book two birthdays ago, which contained a recipe for fudge. The book was the baking bible that is Short & Sweet by Dan Lepard (or my Def Leppard baking book as my sister calls it) and this is just one of the myriad excellent recipes it contains. As fudge was something I'd never tried before and I know Mam loves it, off I went to kitchen to give it a go.

 

Fudge is pretty easy to make, with a short list of ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, vanilla) and equipment (pot, a wooden spoon and sugar thermometer). It does, however, require constant stirring for the forty minutes or so it takes to make. Even better, the last ten minutes of the process involves beating the now very thick mixture vigorously and continuously with the spoon (as my arms protest loudly). All of this stirring and beating is necessary to give the buttery, vanilla-scented fudge its lovely soft, smooth but slightly grainy, melt-in-the-mouth texture. Needless to say, my apartment does not have air-conditioning (being situated in Ireland) and the ambient temperature today was about 23 degrees (or so my sugar thermometer told me before I immersed it in boiling hot fudge). Granted, at the last, fudge-beating stage the pot should be off the heat and so could be moved to the relatively cooler climes at the dining table by the open balcony door. Still. Hot work my friends. Gym? Personal trainer? Not at all - just whip up a batch of fudge. Much cheaper. Maybe I'm on to something here... though on second thoughts, if your exercise goal is to lose weight, being left with the resulting batch of fudge winking temptingly at you every time you open the fridge, this might not be the work-out for you!