Fudge

I cannot make fudge. I realise this is amusing as fudge is probably the simplest candy to make, but I simply cannot do it-something always goes wrong. Today, the brand new candy thermometer decided to not work. That's my other failing-my candy thermometers never work correctly. It does not matter which style I purchase, nor how much I spend-they always break or fail to work correctly from the beginning. My husband is similarly cursed with floppy discs as they tend to erase the minutes he touches them (He's like a human magnet!). So yeah, this time the thermometer was steaming up so I went to wipe away the condensation and noticed it was inside the glass. Great. By the time I shoved an instant read thermometer into it the fudge was grainy and overcooked. I beat in the butter and vanilla anyway and poured it in the pan.

I must have lucked out this time because it is edible. It most certainly is not fudge, but it is a somewhat granular though not unpleasant chocolate that melts well on the tongue and would probably be good sprinkled over ice cream or baked in a cookie.

(I'm sorry, I just lost my train of thought as some jets just flew pretty low over the farm. Usually we just get the *black helicopters* so this is pretty special. As another unrelated aside, we went to dinner with my in-laws tonight and the neighbouring town was testing their sirens at seven PM on a Wednesday night. We looked around and didn't see anything that looked like a tornado or an air-raid so we just went to dinner. See how exciting it is living near STRATCOM? So anyway, what was I talking about...oh yeah, fudge. I can't make fudge).

Lest you think my problem is only with this particular recipe (cream, sugar, salt, chocolate, corn syrup, butter and vanilla) I can't make the no-cook kind either. Or the stuff with condensed milk. It does not seem to matter-I can't do it. Caramelised sugar? Sure, no problem. Spun sugar candy? Easy. Tempering chocolate-absolutely. I just can't manage a freaking pan of fudge. It wouldn't bother me if it weren't such a simple thing I'm unable to master. I don't even like fudge. I think the last time I ate it was in the early 90's when we took a trip to the Cape and Mr. Eat The Blog felt compelled to buy an obscenely large tray of some oddly flavoured stuff. As I recall, they sold the tray with a small plastic knife to cut it into squares, which nobody does. By the second day of the trip he was digging out hunks of it with the car keys, and by the third day we'd dustbinned the rest because no one can eat that much fudge, holiday on Cape Cod, or not.

Interestingly, the ruined fudge is actually a bit more interesting than the smooth creamy stuff, so perhaps it was a happy mistake.

Any fudge experts out there care to weigh in and tell me what an idiot I am for missing something obvious?