Fudge – no fuss

Eliane, this is for you:

Baselbieter Rahmdäfeli or Fudge

When I saw this thingie at a friend’s place

I remembered that my mother has the same.

But what do you use it for?

My friend solved the puzzle: it is a fudge cutter.

Back are all the childhood memories of fudge making, the delicious smell, how proud we were of our sticky and very sweet result!

A recipe? We need a (foolproof) recipe: I asked my mother to start looking in her recipe collection (spanning two hundred years of family recipes), she remembered that we used condensed milk (I recollect low fat cream or Kaffeerahm) and dextrose (grape sugar).

I went online and startet searching for the original recipe (of course it is top secret) but I found an interesting article in our local newspaper BaZ.

According to Willy Weber (we are distantly related on my mother’s side) you need the following ingredients:

1 l milk
100 g butter
600 g sugar

Put all the ingredients in a pot and heat to 120° while constantly stirring.

Hours of stirring do the trick! Some say it takes as long as 90 minutes till you reach the desired consistency and colour (did I have that much patience as a child? I doubt it).

Spread fugde on a greased tin, let it cool and cut it into the desired size with a knife. I would recommend 2 x 2 cm squares. Or you use the fudge cutter, easy, nice and regular!

Some suggest using honey, some recipes recommend cream, variations are vanilla, nuts, chocolate, marshmallow – there is no limit to your imagination.

Here is another recipe I found online.

I never use stuff like light or low fat cream or butter, I prefer the real thing. I think it is a myth to believe that you do your body any good by reverting to low fat or sugarfree products. Eat less or exercise more!

I look forward to making fudge one of these days, too hot for me now. Fudge is a winter thing, reminiscent of fun fairs, sugar candy, wet and dark autumn evenings.

What are your memories of childhood food and cooking? Did your mother cook with you? Do you have a recipe? Share them with us – thanks.