BETTE BAKING: Irish Christmas Fudge
A personal recipe for the holidaze — or how to Frankenfudge it.
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It is the tradition of Bette Dangerous to share a personal Christmas recipe during the holidaze. For me, cooking is sacred. Below is the first recipe I shared right after I launched this project three years ago:
I am a big fan of finding beauty in imperfection, and my World Krabby Famous Mushrooms are delightfully imperfect.
This year, I decided to go for some good craic: Irish Christmas Fudge.
There’s always a story (I once read that the best place to bury the nuclear codes is in the preamble text of an online recipe, because who doesn’t jump right to the ingredients lol).
In any case, I had a craving two days ago for something sweet and landed on some Irish butter fudge with Christmas spices and a twist of orange. The fudge was every bit as a good as its sounds, and I decided to try to make it myself. Having never made fudge before or anything Irish, I am certain the results were beginner’s luck. I didn’t have the proper ingredients or even a recipe, so I had to Frankenfudge it. I found an Irish butter fudge recipe but it called for Irish creme liquor (blech) and the packaging on the original butter fudge didn’t detail the spices.
So here’s what I came up with and other than going too heavy on the cloves, the results were flipping wunderbar.
What you’ll need:
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
Christmas spice mix:
Ground nutmeg
Ground cinnamon
Ground cloves
All Spice
Golden Syrup
Orange juice + bitter orange marmalade (I didn’t have orange essence but if you can get your hands on some, please feel free to replace juice/jam)
Vanilla
Next step:
I started by mixing the brown and white sugars, butter, and condensed milk in a saucepan, bringing to a flash boil, and then lowering it to medium-low heat (mostly low) for about 20 minutes. There were all kinds of recipes that called for candy thermometers and temperature markers, but I am not that sophisticated. I just kept stirring frequently, while watching Father Ted reruns — season one, episode one. (I am making a project of its co-writer and anti-trans activist Graham Linehan — he appears to be a radicalized right-wing extremist and hoping to flip him with kind persistence).
Next step:
While the mixture is heating up, go ahead and create your own Christmas spice mix to taste in a measuring cup.
I took a drizzle of orange juice and bitter orange marmalade and mixed them together, because I had no orange essence — but again, if you do have orange essence, try that out. Next, I added a dollop of golden syrup. Then I added dashes of ground nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, all spice, and about a teaspoon of vanilla. It all measured to a bit over 1/4 cup. Set aside.
Next step:
Once you have your saucepan mix sufficiently heated and ready to go, remove from heat and add your Christmas spice mix, stirring thoroughly.
Next step:
Place your fudge batter in a mixing bowl and by hand, slowly whisk in the confectioner’s sugar until fudge is firm — about two cups or so.
By now, your mix should taste like heaven.
Final step:
Grab some parchment paper and place an oversized piece in an 8 x 8 pan. I only had a 6 x 9 pan, and it worked fine. Some recipes call for multiple layers of parchment paper and greasing the bottom of the pan. Do your thing.
Set your fudge aside for a few hours (I traveled with mine lol), and it’ll firm up on its own.
Pull out the parchment paper and on a flat surface, cut into cubes and eat the entire thing by yourself. Just kidding.
Cuda coda:
I’m sure I’ll attempt a vegan and less sugary version at some point, but when craving fudge around the holidays, I figured, best to go all in.
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