Toasted Fudge

I found two jars of old fluff that were crystallizing in the pantry and decided to make something that would get rid of them. As anyone from the northeast, birthplace of Fluff, might agree, not only is Fluff fantastic but so is the Never Fail Fudge recipe on the back. So far in my life it has lived up to it's name. I also thought it would make a two-fer since I could add a bunch of the remaining old chocolate chips.

Now for those who aren't aquainted with my cooking skills, I have about a 15% failure rate on my cooking projects. Not only that, when I fail, I it's with a certain rare skill that makes my failures very notable. Nonetheless I went ahead with the fudgemaking happily.


So, I put all the ingredients out. Notice the brand new evaporated milk. It was purchased specifically for this project since the others weren't safe to use.

The jars of fluff weren't terribly bad looking but poking around I found some crystallized sugar and no expiration date (I had previously tossed 2 containers of fossilized fluff but I forgot to photograph them).

Scooping out the Fluff showed that the corn syrup is apparently separating out of the mixture. Um, gross.

And it was happening on both.

So I put the first ingredients in the pan and turned it on high. My default temperature for cooking anything is high. I once was dumbfounded during a conversation with someone who was talking about microwaving chicken on some special setting. Again, my microwaving consists of putting something in and putting in a number (meaning I cook EVERYTHING on high). You may also remember the cupcakes I tryed to soften in the microwave.

I then set everything up, with the temperature on high, and the phone rang. I was asked to water some plants and not wanting to forget and be yelled at I went out, cordless phone in hand, to water them.

BAD IDEA!!

Did I mention that I also put the ingredients in a pan that was way too small? I came back in when I was told I might want to look at what I had on the stove. This was relayed in a very calm voice which didn't prepare me for what I was walking into. The stuff (fluff, 5 cups of sugar and butter) was bubbling all over and smelled like burned sugar. Uh oh. I didn't think the fudge was supposed to be brown so soon, the chocolate hadn't been added yet, but I poured the mixture into a larger bowl.

Turned the heat down to medium and began to pick the brown and black chunks of burned sugar out of the bottom.

Kept cooking......

And cooking......

And made fudge. I left it on the counter to cool for a while and found that we have mice.

Mice that figured out how to get a knife out of the drawer and cut a nice piece of fudge for themselves to eat. The fudge was actually not as bad as I thought it would be but it does taste like a chocolate marshmallow that was being toasted over a campfire and was blackened on the outside. Perhaps in a graham cracker it would taste like s'mores?

I think the bigger problem is how to clean that first pan.

Luckily for me I still have some 13 year old baking soda to help!!!

Too bad it doesn't work!!!! Time to get out the power tools and drill the black stuff off the bottom of the pan again. And no I'm not joking.

Again, don't judge me....