All About Fudge

A Guest post, by a talented composer of sweets:

ALL ABOUT FUDGE

In common with caramel and toffee, fudge has three ingredients - sugar, water, and fat. Milk is fat and water. Golden syrup is sugar and water. Condensed milk is all three, which is why you can make caramel out of it without adding anything else. So it's pretty simple. Simple is not the same as easy.

Sugar, water

The sugar-to-water ratio makes your caramel more or less runny. Equal parts by volume gives you simple syrup.

Sugar, water, fat

Adding fat (butter, unless you don't eat cow-juice, in which case probably coconut oil behaves the same way) changes the way the finished thing behaves. Fudge breaks into chunks, while toffee stretches a bit before breaking. Those gorgeous long crisp filaments that simple syrup makes if you cook it golden? That's what happens with no fat at all. It's similar to the way that shortcrust pastry breaks while bread dough stretches out. It's called shortening for a reason*

Sugar, water, fat, heat

Heat alters organic things. Proteins denature, and sugars caramelise. Applying heat for longer does two things - it drives off water, making a thicker finished product, and it caramelises the sugar. The colour changes to gold and then to brown, and the taste deepens and gets richer and more complex. Just don't go too far and let it burn.

Sugar, water, fat, heat, stirring

When sugar is liquid it is very, very hot. When it cools it wants to crystallise again, but in a smooth pan of itself that's difficult. When you stir, you start off lots of little crystalline nubbles that grow more crystals. So the whole thing gets that good fudgey texture. If you add chopped nuts or raisins, you effectively make the stirring stirrier so you needn't do it for as long.

The recipe, at last

1 lb demerara sugar

2 oz butter

1/2 pint milk or cream or a mixture of milk and cream

A few drops of vanilla extract

Line a tin with baking paper. Put all the ingredients except the vanilla in a large pot. Melt them over a low heat. Gently increase the heat until it starts boiling, then reduce the heat again so it simmers. Now, it'll rise up in a huge froth of bubbles which can be a little alarming, but don't worry; it's supposed to be doing that. Keep stirring it gently, every now and then, so the bottom doesn't burn.

After ten minutes or so, start testing it (it could take another twenty minutes to be done, though, so don't get impatient here.) Now, this is the point where the recipe books start talking about the soft ball stage, and I am here to tell you that there is no such thing.

If you're of a sensitive disposition, skip this paragraph and buy a sugar thermometer instead.

Testing fudge for done-ness results in something remarkably like a poo. Early on - before enough water has been boiled off - the stuff will disperse in the cup of water like the kebab you should have known better than to eat in the first place. If you overcook it, the fudge will hit the bottom of the cup in a scatter of hard little nuggets. And when you see in the bottom of the cup a smooth, comfortable turd shape - a poo you wouldn't mind having yourself, and don't pretend not to know what I mean - then your fudge is done. If you're not sure, reach in and gather it up with your fingers. It should hold together and feel soft almost chewy when you eat it, assuming you still want to do such a thing.

Or just wait until a sugar thermometer reads between 112 and 116 C.

Anyway, when you've arrived at this happy state of affairs, take the fudge off the heat, add a dash of vanilla, and stir like a maniac. At first it'll seem as if you're just sloshing liquid around for no good reason, but then it will thicken and start to look creamy. The track left by the spoon will be slow to close up. At this point you can pour it into a tin and let it set. By all means lick the pan, but for goodness' sake let it cool first.

If it doesn't set properly, don't worry. Just use it as delicious caramel sauce and next time, cook it a bit longer or stir it a bit more. If it sets too much and is a crumbly mess, bash it up some more and sprinkle it on icecream, and next time stop cooking a bit sooner or stir a bit more gently.

* I have no idea whether this is the real reason it's called shortening, or if there's any relation between the effect butter has on pastry and the effect it has on fudge. It could all be a string of coincidences.

Cumin Potatoes

(For barbecuing) - prepare in advance

Carefully boil some even-sized potatoes in their skins until just tender but not breaking up. Drain, let dry off and cool a little.

Halve the long way: score the cut surfaces; lay out on dish, cut sides up.

Next, prepare some Cumin Butter:

 

Melt a 1/4 lb of butter over a low heat (or microwave) and in it place 2 teaspoons of ground cumin; salt and pepper as preferred, and a well-mashed clove or two of garlic (if you like it) 

[Irish butter tends to be quite salty. If your butter is not, you will need some salt)

Stir all together and gently heat again until it smells savoury and delicious.

Brush or baste the scored tops of potatoes with this; maybe repeat so that it sinks in thoroughly.

(Grease the undersides - the skin side - with the butter so they don't scorch when grilled)

Store until needed on the dish with more of the butter around, if there's any left over. If it is a foil-lined tin, the washing-up will be less messy.

Barbecue!

Brush more onto the scored sides as you like it, and if there is any left for the purpose.

PS The spicing of the butter can be varied, though Cumin has a natural affinity with potatoes. Mustard is a useful one for a little tanginess.

I sometimes add Turmeric for a good yellow colour. or paprika for redness, etc: to get a nice barbecued bronzing

but the Cumin/(garlic) is the best base flavour.

They only need to be put on the grill long enough to heat through and to absorb a whiff of the smoky taste; Maybe 7 minutes, depending on the heat. They should be eaten while good and hot. Whether you turn the spuds over to grill both sides or cook them on their rounded bottoms only, is entirely your personal decision.

There are NEVER any left over!

My goose is cooked....

The goose was not fattened for us by some plump farmer's wife: it came from Lidl, frozen. Ultimately from Hungary, as it turns out.
It lay in the freezer a solid frozen lump for the last month, and i decided that New Year's Day would be a good occasion to cook it; so it was removed from the freezer yesterday and laid in a white enamel coffin to thaw out for 24 hours, and meanwhile I, and the man of the house, perused every cookery book we could lay our hands on.

Fortunately for us, there was a degree of unanimity: all were united in claiming that there is not much meat on a goose: that it sheds a lot of fat in cooking: that a stuffing of mashed potato and apple is the one to pick: and so it proved.

i made the stuffing very simply; by mixing together plain mashed potatoes, home-made applesauce and a bit of chopped onion that was softened in a little butter. Mix all three together, season with salt and pepper, beat well, insert into goose cavity. Simple enough!
But whats all this in the goose cavity?? eeek, dead body parts in a drippy plastic bag. Giblets, ugh. I dropped them into a small saucepan and covered them with cold water, a bit of celery, a bayleaf: simmer, for stock, for the gravy.
Meanwhile the oven was heating to 205 C and we placed the bird on top of an improvised trivet, an upturned enamel plate; this is to let the rendered fat trickle down. Then into the hot oven, and the roasting commenced.

After half an hour or so we investigated; sure enough, lots of fat had melted and run down and this we poured off. Also, the limbs were starting to scorch, so we covered most of the creature in tin foil to protect it while the meat continued to cook.

This process was repeated several more times.
Meanwhile, I prepared a dish of red cabbage, cooked with chopped fried onion, a dollop of vinegar, a trace of brown sugar and a chopped apple; add the shredded red cabbage (which has previously soaked in cold water) and simmer the lot together;

Finally, the goose was declared to be cooked and the man of the house placed it on a big dish and carved it, cutting the breast meat into slices.

And yes, it's true, you hit bone almost immediately; but the meat is rich and good.











Here is how it looked when served...

I made a drop of gravy with the giblet stock and the pan juices: but the meal was so rich I didn't eat any of it! There were some plain boiled potatoes available too but the stuffing was so delectable that it served very well on its own as a vegetable dish. The red cabbage was just perfect as an accompaniment - superb. A dish of simple unsweetened applesauce provided a tart contrast.
There was tons of cabbage left over and that was packed for the freezer, red cabbage freezes and reheats exceptionally well.

Finally, tonight, we had some of the leftover meat, cut into smaller pieces, in a pilaff; also very good.

A goose would serve four people, and maybe six. If any more guests, you would need some extra meat, and I consider that Spiced Beef wouyld serve really well, the lean spicy texture would be a perfect foil for goose.

Happy New Year!