Mommy's Fudge

Mommy didn't really get the cooking gene ... Mama (her mother) and Aunt Edna (Mama's sister) were the COOKS, baybee, and they were FEYUS.  All the recipes basically start with "take four pounds of butter and one freshly slaughtered hog"... Mama never had anything written down and I remember my one sister asked her for recipes one year ... Mama wrote them down and they didn't work.  My sister followed her around one year and found out when Mama said, "one cup" she meant one of the TEA cups from her wedding china, "one teaspoon" was an iced tea spoon (hellOWuh, TEAspoon), a "pinch" was something along the lines of a grapefruit spork (because you pinched the top of whatever it was with the forky park of the spork), one TABLEspoon was what we called a gravy spoon and a "dash" wasn't an 1/8th of a teaspoon ... it's that moment you pour cream in to tea and it mushrooms back up to you.  (My friend, LaWall, best describes it for his coffee order:  "Make it look like Lena Horne.")

I also realised with this recipe why I had never seen a candy thermometer before.  There are a few candy recipes from her and there are very specific directions for when things are ready ... smell, texture, timing ... you know the sauce for the cabbage is ready, not when it boils but when the boiling turns in to a FOAM and comes up to the top of the sauce pan ! and this one is all about stirring ... and stirring and stirring and stirring until you see TWO bubbles.

Sew, other than meatloaf, cole slaw, potato salad and Brownie Stew (mary, don't ask), this fudge recipe was Mommy's pride and joy; she LOVED chocolate and she hid it and horded it.  I used have to sneak pieces of it and she'd SCREAM !  Then she would put a note on the top of the fudge with the number of how many pieces were left.  One year I got the bright idear of slicing little slivers off each one and making my own piece ...

Mommy's Fudge (doubles BEAUTIFULLY)

You wanna take 16 medium sized marshmallows and you want to take scissors and you want to cut each in to four pieces and place them in a bowl and yes the scissors get sticky and no, spraying them with PAM doesn't work and NO, you can't use mini-marshmallows because there's skin on the outside of them and it makes the fudge tough.

Pour 1 teaspoon of vanilla over the top of that and toss a little so the vanilla can soak in.  Now, in a saucepan mix:

• 2/3 cup of evaporated milk
• 1 2/3 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

I sift the sugar and the salt because it makes the fudge releh smooth.  Okay:

Place the saucepan over LOWuh heat and every now and again stir until this boils...i.e., when you see THE FIRST TWO bubbles ... not a pop, but when you see it starts bubbling in more than just one place, then start timing five minutes and stir, stir, stir, stir, stir, stir, stir.

REMOVE this from the heat, from the burner, put it far away from the stove.

Stir in the marshmallows and make them melt.  It helps to push them against the side of the bowl with the spoon.

Stir in 1 1/2 cups of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate morsels until they're melted.

Pour this batter in to buttered containers (this recipe is for a 9" square pan but you can use lots of plastic containers, just as long as you butter them).  It's best to use a piece of wax paper to butter the containers because if there is too much butter then, as the fudge cools, the butter kinda solidifies on the top and it looks yuckie.

Here's the killer.  It's part of two or three of Mama's recipes:

"Place in sun parlour or on attic steps to cool."

Good luck with that one.
The sun parlour, is a south-facing room both at the house in The District AND on the farm in Southern Maryland, and the attic, of course, had no heat, so it's basically saying "in the coolest part of the house ...

you want the batter to cool a bit before you put it in the fridge ... so ... do what you think best. 

Also, know that where ever you put these containers, COVER them somehow, either with saran wrap or waxed paper or an air-tight cover (NOT FOIL!), because the fudge picks up EVERY smell in the ice box ;-)

p.s.:  my husband is not releh a fan of the nuts?  i grew up with a half cup of black walnuts chopped fine and stirred in to the fudge after the morsels melt.  it makes it RELEH good if you like that sort of thing...yummers.