I love fudge - the creamy goodness reminds me of holidaying in Devon as a child. I also love learning how to make things myself, so about eight years ago I bought a digital sugar thermometer and decided to try and work out how to make it. There were lots of failures but I worked out a recipe that I was happy with, however I then got distracted with PhD, motherhood and work and didn't make any for a number of years until I went back to it only to have another string of failures which left me despondent.
This year, just before xmas, I stumbled across a recipe for peanut butter fudge (I will put a link to it below) which convinced me to pull my recipe out and have another go. A key factor in this was that the recipe says to submerge the pan in a sink partially filled with cold water to cool it more quickly, and it also called for an electric hand mixer instead of `beating with a wooden spoon'. I don't know why these things had never occurred to me - they seem obvious now - but the reasons for my many failures had been because I hadn't had the patience to a) wait for the fudge to cool before beating it and, b) most importantly, beat the fudge for as long as it needed.
Once I had had a few successful attempts at my basic recipe (which I will post at a later date) I decided to experiment a little with different fats, and the result of this is my coconut fudge. I have used pink food colouring but you could leave it as is for a lovely white coconut colour, and you could also add some desiccated coconut to the top of it for extra flavour and for decoration. You don't need to add any artificial flavours as the coconut taste really comes through from the coconut oil.
Ingredients:
450g sugar
50g light corn syrup (or golden syrup if you don't mind the colour being less white)
100g coconut oil
175ml double cream
75ml whole fat milk
Method:
1) Fill your sink with a few inches of cold water and line a loaf tin or small 8" square tin with greaseproof paper (or use a silicone mould).
2) Add all the ingredients to a pan (preferably a heavy bottomed one if you have one but a normal pan is fine so long as you stir lots) on a low heat and stir as the oil melts and the sugar is dissolved.
3) When it starts to boil keep the heat low and wipe down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water to make sure there are no stray sugar crystals. This is really important because - as I learnt the hard way - a stray sugar crystal will, given the chance, re-crystalise the batch so you lose the lovely creamy texture. I keep a glass of water with a pastry brush and my thermometer next to me as I work when making fudge. Keep boiling and stirring until the fudge reached a soft ball stage. This is, temperature wise, between 113C-116C (235F-240F). If you don't have a thermometer you can drop a little mixture into a glass of cold water. If it dissolves quickly it isn't ready, but if it forms stands/balls that when taken from the glass can be moulded and keep their shape then it is ready. I heat to 115C then, once it hits this temperature, pop the pan in the sink (being careful not to get water in the pan) and leave it for a few mins to cool down.
4) After it has been left for a good 5-10 mins, use a spatula to scoop the fudge mixture into a bowl and then, with a hand mixer, beat until it begins to thicken. This is the hardest part to get right and I often under or over beat slightly. The main thing is to beat until you can feel the mixture is thicker (and therefore harder to beat) and that when you lift the mixer out of the pan (turn it off first!) the trace of the drops from the mixer takes a good few seconds to sink back in. Once it has thickened scrape it into the loaf tin and leave to set in the fridge.
5) Once it has set for a few hours (or overnight) cut into squares. Keep in a sealed container (or gift bags) in the fridge.
Light corn syrup can, in the UK (where I am) be bought on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000BMNOAA?keywords=light%20corn%20syrup&qid=1451904342&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
and a cheap digital thermometer can be obtained from eBay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181820424418
The Peanut Butter fudge recipe that inspired me to get going again was this one:
http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/peanut-butter-fudge/
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