Sunday 8 August 2010

Sweet Tooth Heaven!

I'm sitting here with a guilty secret - latte and vanilla fudge for breakfast!

Decadent and delicious, this is the second batch of this fudge I've made in just over a week. The recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'River Cottage everyday'; fast becoming one of my favourite cookbooks.

We love this fudge as a sweet treat and it tastes even better when eaten alongside my lemon gingerbread and ginger mascarpone cream dessert - recipe to follow in future blog.


A sugar thermometer is essential for this recipe and the use of double cream instead of the usual condensed milk of most fudge recipes makes, I think, for a lighter creamier texture and a more delicious fudge.

Vanilla Fudge
Makes 30ish squares
Ingredients
300g caster sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
100g unsalted butter, diced
100ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract (not vanilla essence)

Method
Put the sugar, syrup, butter and cream into a large saucepan, you need plenty of room for the mixture to bubble as it boils. Melt and combine over a low heat stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat, stop stirring and bring to the boil with the sugar thermometer in the pan. Boil until the mixture reaches soft ball stage - 116C. Remove the pan from the heat, remove the sugar thermometer and leave to stand for 10 mins.

Meanwhile lightly oil a 15cm x 22cm baking dish and get out your electric whisk. After resting the mixture for 10 mins, add the vanilla extract and beat until the mixture thickens and starts to come away from the base of the pan. (This will be obvious when you see it. The whisking took me 10 mins for my first batch and 7 mins for my second.)

Put the fudge mixture into the baking dish, smooth the top and leave to cool. When quite cold mark it into squares and leave for about 4 hours to firm up, then take out of the dish and store in an airtight tin.

Note: I don't know how long the fudge will store for; our first batch was only around for four days and there are only two of us - look out waistline!

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