(Easy) Fudge through the ages

As I said in a test kitchen article near Easter last year: Cooking isn’t just about eating to live, it’s about what that life means.

A reader recently emailed MT asking that one of us write about peanut butter fudge. This led me on a journey from a high school speech class in the 1970s to a new “easy fudge” recipe via the internet, unfolding the links twixt mimeograph and microprocessor.

“For two years I have tried around holiday time to make some of this delicious fudge,on six occasions, following 5 different recipes. Always, it has been a failure,” the email said. “Once it was sickeningly sweet; another time it hardly had any peanut butter flavor. Probably, three times it never hardened, even though I stood at the stove and stirred it like a witch at her cauldron. I love good peanut butter fudge, but just can’t make it. I have used different peanut butters; I have tried using marshmallow creme and then another time, miniature marshmallows. Once, I even used margarine instead of butter. Nothing I do makes a difference. If you can, help, please !!!”

MT and I decided I should be the one to make the fudge, due to my greater confectionery experience — predating my high school speech class.

I remember hauling a bowl, stirring implement and a few ingredients to school to give a “descriptive” speech required by Mr. Milot, who still ranks as one of my top teachers, thanks to the challenges of his assignments, the freedom in meeting them, and my formative age at the time.

(Maybe someday I’ll write about the suitcase full of dummy military ordinance from my Purple Heart-winning dad’s collection that I took to school for a different speech, though I’m not sure how I could relate that to cooking.)

As a teen I made peanut butter/cocoa fudge balls while giving the speech that ended with free samples — more satisfying to my classmates, I suspect, than another chap’s demonstration on how to shave.

Figuring it would be easy for any reader, I searched my West Hazleton homestead for that 1970s recipe. I also searched some dusty school papers from speech class at our house, discovering the mimeograph list of speech topics. In the end, the fudge ball recipe below seemed right. It called for melting butter, but I realized I probably just used softened butter for the speech demo.

I also searched online and found the other recipe below for “easy peanut butter fudge.” I opted to make both: The fudge balls with marshmallow and cocoa to see if it worked without melting butter and tasted the way I remembered from class; the latter because the reader, Viv Harris from West Pittston, told MT she yearned for “pure” peanut butter fudge —with no cocoa or other flavors.

MT took an assortment to the newsroom taste testers on a recent Thursday, and then went beyond that.

First, the newsroom.

“Once again,” Bill O’Boyle said, “you’ve made something where I’d like to eat the whole thing but I’ll only eat one piece.”

Mitch Hall didn’t hesitate in taking a taste because “you can’t go wrong with peanut butter.”

The usually expansive comments of editor Roger DuPuis shrunk to “I love it.”

“It’s very, very good,” our newest reporter Hannah Simerson said. Then, in reference to the table with the fudge being near her desk, added “I’ve got the best seat in the house.”

But MT didn’t stop there. She had choir practice at St. Nicholas Church, and divvied the remains among singers asking “Do you want to try this fresh homemade fudge?”

“Do we!” one of the sopranos responded. Soon a chorus of “it’s great,” “so smooth” and “delicious” rang through the rafters (or so I imagine, not having been there). Even quiet Sister Anna, well-known for making delicious Vietnamese egg rolls for the church bazaar, smiled shyly and gave a thumbs up.

But of course, you want to know how Viv liked it. Well, we can tell you, thanks to MT deciding to reserve some of the peanut butter-only fudge for the reader who started it all.

“So spectacular,” MT reports being told later via voice message. “ I think it is the most wonderful fudge I have ever eaten.”

“The consistency is creamy, the peanut butter flavor is intense, the level of saltiness is perfect,” Viv continues. “Mark got the amount of sweetness just right. It’s subtle, which is what I prefer and can almost never find in fudge.

“Overall I would give this version of fudge a score of 100. I can’t wait to see the recipe. And if I stir and stir and cannot get the consistency right, you will hear me scratching piteously at your door”

Viv added that her husband, Al, “who usually does not like fudge, has been fighting me tooth and nail for every piece.”

On a semantic note, I consider directions to “melt” butter pretty close to cooking, so maybe this doesn’t qualify as “no-cook” fudge. On the other hand, purists may argue it’s not fudge if you don’t heat the sugar(s) to “soft ball” candy stage, but I’m not of that school.

Dobru chut!

Easy Peanut Butter Fudge (cookwithkushi.com)

½ cup butter

½ cup peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups confectioners sugar

Melt butter and peanut butter in pan on medium low. Remove from heat. Add vanilla extract and sugar and stir until combined. Pour into loaf pan lined with parchment paper and smooth the top with spatula. Press plastic wrap or parchment paper over top and chill until set, about three hours. Cut and serve.

Fudge balls (made for a high school “descriptive” speech assignment in 1970s)

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup marshmallow cream

1 pound powdered sugar

8 tablespoons cocoa

½ pound butter, melted (it works fine if butter is just softened to room temperature).

Mix peanut butter and marshmallow. Add sugar, coca and butter. Mix and knead with hands. Shape into balls. For variety, you can roll them in coconut, chocolate sprinkles or crushed nuts. No refrigeration needed.