Sunday 1 July 2012

Peanut Butter Fudge

Hello! Welcome to my first proper recipe-post. As I had a free Sunday today I decided to celebrate by making a batch of fudge. I had wanted to try making peanut butter fudge for a while, so that was what was on the agenda for this morning; when I started looking for recipes none of them seemed all that great to me, so I decided to ad lib and this recipe was the result- and it turned out pretty well!
                                 
So you’ll need:
·         800g granulated sugar (I always use unrefined for the yummy fudgy flavour it has already)
·         200ml double cream
·         100ml milk (whole or semi-skimmed, doesn’t matter)
·         100g salted butter
·         1/2tsp salt
·         150g crunchy peanut butter (you could use smooth but I like the crunch in the fudge)
And pretty simply, you just weigh out all the ingredients except the peanut butter, and put them into a heavy based pan with a lot of room for the syrup to bubble up (also, this is the best time to grease your tin with a little flavourless oil, sunflower etc- I used a 7 by 11 inch, 1 inch deep tin)-
                                   
Then put over a low heat to dissolve the sugar with the cream and butter-
                                   
Once dissolved, the mixture needs to boil. Obviously be careful of the sugar-napalm you are working with here- no fingers! And you should use a wooden spoon so the heat doesn’t conduct and burn your palm. The fudge doesn’t need constant stirring, but do give it a mix here and there. It needs to get to just above soft ball (testable the traditional way with a glass of water, or preferably with a sugar thermometer. Or in my case two because I’m a little paranoid since my Christmas fudge disaster of ‘08) my batch took just over 10 minutes to do this-
                                   
Once it has reached the correct temperature, leave the mix to cool for a few minutes, so the bubbles die down, and then beat the syrup until you can feel that it has become grainy, and it isn’t glossy anymore. Then add in the peanut butter, giving it a final beat.-
                                   
Then transfer the mix into the greased tin and leave to cool.
                                   
Once it’s cooled, tip the block out onto a board and cut it into pretty little squares- and dig in! I keep my fudge in the magic that is Tupperware, anything airtight will do the job (and it would look lovely in a Kilner jar) Oooh and when you’ve poured the fudge into the tin, don’t throw the pan straight into the washing up, scrape the set fudge from the pan and make yourself some yummy yummy fudge sprinkles! And then you can make this pretty dessert by scattering them over bananas and crème fraiche J

Hayley x

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