Feed Your Kids

This fudge recipe is SUPER rich and delicious – very sinful. It’s VERY easy to make and makes a great holiday gift. My dad is absolutely powerless to resist this stuff. It was his mother’s recipe, but she passed away 11 years ago, so I make it for him every once in a while now. It can be frozen for surprisingly periods of time without much ill effect. This should not be made on a rainy or very humid day – it won’t “set” properly.

I made this batch without nuts, at the special request of Girl, who is not a fan of most nuts. The nuts are optional, but it’s really much better with pecans in it. If you do add the nuts, though, make SOME effort to secure decent ones – the Planters in the bag from the supermarket will absolutely NOT do. Get good ones, even if you have to special-order them. There are lots of things that I do NOT like about living in Texas, but one of the good things is that we are able to secure really good pecans. My grandparents (on my mom’s side) are my “suppliers” and always seem to know a great local source. Thanks, Granny and Pappaw! I love you!

Grandma Louise’s Fudge

1/3 cup butter
1 can evaporated milk
(The original recipe says a 14 1/2 ounce can, but they don’t make those anymore, so I just use one 12 ounce can, plus a couple of ounces from another can to make 14 1/2 ounces. Any milk that you have left over is really yummy whisked into scrambled eggs before cooking – about 1 Tbsp. per egg.)
1 12-ounce package semisweet chocolate chips
4 1/2 cups sugar
13 ounces German’s brand sweet baking (green box) chocolate
(Again, 13 ounces is an odd amount. That’s 3 boxes, plus one or two extra squares. The recipe would probable be fine if you just used 12 ounces, but I haven’t tried it myself.)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups chopped pecans (optional, but recommended)
1 cup marshmallow cream (in a jar)

Butter a 13 X 9 inch (preferably glass) baking pan. Combine sugar, salt, butter and milk in a large pan sauce pan. Bring to a boil over low to medium heat and boil for 5 1/2 minutes, adjusting heat if necessary, to keep mixture from scorching. Remove from heat and add all other ingredients, except nuts. Beat/stir until well mixed. Stir in nuts, if desired. Pour into buttered pan. Let cool until solid, then cut into small square (about 1 1/2 inches on a side) pieces. Can be microwaved for a short time in a small container (coffee cup?) until melted to use for hot fudge ice cream sauce, if desired. Mmmmm……

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup softened unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
1 large egg
1/4 cup molasses

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line ungreased baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together flour, baking soda, spices and salt; set aside.

Beat butter and 1 cup of the sugar in large bowl of electric mixer on medium-high speed until light (about 1 minute). Add the egg and molasses; mix well.

Stop the mixer and add the flour mixture. Mix just until combined.

Using about 1 Tbsp. of the dough for each, roll the dough into balls.

We use long iced tea spoons (heaping) to scoop the dough out of the bowl. It’s very important to make them all as close to the same size as possible, so that they will all cook at the same rate.

Roll in the remaining 1/4 cup of granulated sugar so that they are fully coated. Arrange on baking sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. If you prefer a thin, crisp cookie, they may be flattened with a glass that has been dipped in sugar.

At our house, we prefer cookies that are crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle, so we do NOT do the glass-flattening step, but place them on the cookie sheets in “balls”. Watch the cookies carefully as they bake – you want them to just be starting to “crust” a little on the outside, but still be a little soft in the middle. It’s a very fine line, for these cookies, between “chewy/delicious” and “tough/scorched”. You want to pull them out of the oven before they start to darken too much. They will spread a bit as they bake and “crack” open on their tops.

Bake until set (about 11 minutes). I bake two cookie sheets at a time, so I switch the sheets from the bottom oven rack to the top oven rack halfway through the baking time, so that they don’t get too well done on either the bottom or the tops of the cookies. If you bake one tray at a time and don’t do this little “switcheroo”, they will take less time (about 9 – 10 minutes) to bake in total, since the oven won’t be opened and have a chance to cool down.

Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool. Makes about 3 dozen. Store in an airtight container and eat them within one week.

These are a great spicy, winter-y cookie, but they are just as delicious in the summer (with lemonade) as they are in the winter (with a frosty glass of milk or hot cup of coffee for dunking). These make a great holiday gift, too.

Dr. Agatston, of South Beach Diet fame (see my last post), says that the two WORST diet disasters that you can inflict upon yourself are beer and ice cream, so let me just make it clear right now that Hubby and I will NOT eat this. Well, I won’t eat it anyway. Hubby, however, has absolutely NO willpower when it comes to ice cream, so I bet he’ll have some. I’d feel guilty for tempting him, but he’s lost more weight than I have, so I can sabotage his diet just a little, right? The idea, though, is that this is for the kids. We have a ton of leftover Halloween candy around here and thought it might be fun to “smush” some into ice cream, like at our favorite ice cream place. I like to make my own ice cream, so that I can use organic milk, cream, eggs, etc. Some wonderfully thoughtful friends (Thanks J and D!!!) even brought us back some organic Mexican vanilla (the best in the world – really!) from their trip this summer. Making your own ice cream is MUCH simpler than you might think, it just requires a bit of pre-planning. You need to allow enough time for the custard to cool before freezing and also you need to remember to put your ice cream freezer cylinder in your freezer (most require 24 hours). This is a great dessert to make for a dinner party, though – make the custard ahead of time (morning of the party or even the day before) and have it chilled in the fridge, then just pour it into the ice cream maker. By the time the coffee’s ready, you have ice cream. Your guests will be very impressed!

Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream

1 cup milk
(we use lowfat and it turns out fine – yes, I used to be one of those people that would order a chili cheeseburger, onion rings and a diet Coke)
1/2 cup sugar (see note below)
2 large eggs
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla extract (Mexican, if possible)

Warm the milk over low heat in a medium-sized saucepan. Whisk the sugar and eggs together in a separate medium-sized bowl. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg/sugar mixture, while continuing to whisk.

NOTE: This is VERY important and may require someone else to help pour while you stir. If you pour too quickly, without enough stirring, the warm milk will cook the eggs too quickly and the finished ice cream will taste like scrambled eggs. Blech!

Here is the egg/sugar/milk mixture as it starts to cook:

Pour the mixture back into the pan and heat it slowly until thickened, stirring constantly (until it looks like very liquid pudding). Do NOT let this come to a boil (see “scrambled egg” warning above).

Here’s the egg/sugar/milk mixture, once it’s reached the right consistency:

Remove from heat and let the custard cool to room temperature. Stir in the whipping cream and vanilla.

Here’s the custard, after adding the cream and vanilla:

Pour custard into a Tupperware-type container and chill until thoroughly cooled. Freeze in your ice cream maker, following the manufacturer directions. Top with your favorite crushed candy bar, toasted nuts, etc.

If you happen to feel like getting REALLY fancy (and happen to have an extra $2 or so on hand to buy a vanilla bean), you can cut 1 whole vanilla bean in half, then cut it open (lengthwise) and add it to your custard right before cooking it (after mixing the milk and the eggs/sugar). Let the vanilla bean sit in the custard as it cools. OMIT the vanilla extract if you do this. Right before freezing, remove the vanilla bean and scrape out all of the tiny seeds inside, discarding the outer bean pod afterwards. Then you’ll have “Vanilla Bean” ice cream, with the authentic little vanilla specks. This is Hubby’s favorite.

NOTE on sugar: I like to use organic cane sugar for most recipes. It’s organic, first of all, but it also has a richer, molasses/brown sugar taste, because it’s unrefined. It is darker and does have larger granules, though, so I wouldn’t recommend it for any recipe where the sugar doesn’t really have a chance to be heated/cooked enough to dissolve well. I would NOT use it for things like: meringue, sweetened whipped (Chantilly) cream or rimming a cocktail glass. You need finer, whiter sugar for that. But, I do love the cane sugar flavor for cookies, muffins, custards, adding to hot beverages, etc.

Here’s the ice cream, freezing in the machine:

Speaking of ice cream makers, have any of you ever used one of these?
I’m thinking of getting one for a friend’s children for Christmas. It looks like it would be really fun, even though it only makes a little bit of ice cream at a time.

Here’s the finished ice cream, in a storage container to finish freezing to serving consistency:

Here it is, ready for serving, with the candy inside. Boy and Hubby put Reese’s in theirs, Girl chose a Crunch bar. The ice cream was still a little soft, but gets a little “harder” after it has been in the fridge overnight.