Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The Big Fudge

In honor of the New Year- which has already brought a new engagement for a special friend and the death of one of my baby sister's friends...in two days. Bring on the rest!



I was nine when I discovered recipes. It was in a doctor's office of all places!
Whenever one of my sisters got sick (it was rarely ever me), we'd all pack up our schoolwork and go spend an hour or more in the doctor's office. (That's the life of a homeschooler- you adapt to many locations.) It was there that I developed the habit of copying recipes from the waiting room magazines into my school notebooks.

This developed into an obsession with baking cakes, pancakes, cupcakes, and cookies. If it needed flour, sugar, butter & eggs...I was interested.

When I was 15, our church decided to do a silent auction with goods baked by the youth. I was ecstatic! There was finally a time and a place for me to share my special skills! How bitterly disappointed I was about to be...

I decided to tackle a new recipe (never a good idea when you're trying to make a good impression...) and chose the recipe for See's Candy Fudge. I went shopping with my Mom at our base commissary for the ingredients and skimmed the recipe before beginning.
Things were going smoothly. Everything was combined and melted in the pot. I was only one step away from success!

The last line read: "When the fudge forms a ball in the water, then it is ready to be moved to the pan to cool."

Hmm...I don't remember ever seeing Mom put the fudge in water. Really? Pour all of this into water? Won't that dilute it?

I'm sure if there were such a thing as a "Fudge Fairy" she would have been fluttering near my head in a panic screaming, "NO!!! Don't do it!!!" I wish there had been...

I had to find a giant bowl that would hold water AND all of the fudge. Then I filled it partway with water- leaving space for the fudge. Hoisting the heavy (and hot!) pot of fudge over the edge of the bowl I poured it in!

Waiting expectantly for the magical fudge to form a ball as the recipe said it would, I prepared the pan that I would put it in. After a few minutes, I began to re-read the recipe. No. There was no time limit for the fudge to form a ball. Confused, I finally sought out my Mom. "It hasn't formed a ball yet, Mom!" I said anxiously, "When does it do that?"

"Where is it?" asked my Mom, peering into the empty pot on the edge of the stove.

"Right there!" I said, gesturing to the giant bowl filled with my now very soup-like fudge.

"What did you do?!" my Mom asked.

"Followed the recipe...?" I said, now very concerned for my fudge. And my reputation with the youth group...

"No! Sweetie, you're only supposed to put a tiny bit of it into some water and see if THAT forms into a ball!!"

"Oh no! What am I going to do? We need to go back to the store!" I said in a panic.

Stirring the pitiful fudge that would never be, my Mom decided to try something. "We'll can it and call it 'Fudge Sauce'! Then people can put it on ice cream and such."

I was NOT keen on the idea at all. It was grainy, a little watery, and nothing I wanted on MY ice cream...

As I watched people that knew me buy the cans of 'Fudge Sauce' I cringed. I knew it didn't taste that great. I felt like Anne Shirley in "Anne of Green Gables" when her precious teacher comes to visit. As she watches her teacher about to eat the pudding, she panics and cries: "Don't eat it Miss Stacey!" and confesses that she'd removed a dead mouse from the pudding earlier that day. Ew. At least my mistake wasn't THAT gross...

That was one of my big fudge moments. There have been plenty more- though few related to cooking...I am very careful with recipes!

Happy New Year! May your year be skim of fudge moments- but if you have them? Share! :)

1 comment:

  1. It's true! You're very careful with recipes now. And good at keeping the rest of us from making mistakes too. As your sister, I now dub thee, the "Fudge Fairy".

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