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Let me show you today one of the great old homemade candies, real chocolate fudge, cooked on the stovetop the old way, rich and smooth and deeply chocolate, that melts on the tongue and cuts into neat little squares to share and to give. There are quick and easy fudges about these days, made with condensed milk and such, and they are fine in their way, but I want to show you the real thing, the old cooked fudge our grandmothers made, for there is a magic to it, cooking sugar and milk and chocolate to just the right point and then working it smooth. Once you know the way of it, you can make a candy finer than any you would buy, for pennies, to fill a tin for the holidays or to give as a gift made by your own hand.

Now, I will be honest from the start, fudge is a candy, and candy-making has a bit more exactness to it than most of my plain cooking, for it depends on cooking the sugar to just the right stage. It is not hard once you understand it, but it wants your attention at two points, the cooking and the cooling, and I will be plain about both so yours comes out smooth and not grainy.

INGREDIENTS (makes about 1 1/2 pounds)

3 cups sugar
3/4 cup whole milk (or cream)
1/2 cup cocoa powder (or 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate)
4 tablespoons butter, plus more for the pan
1 teaspoon vanilla
A pinch of salt
Optional: 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Here is what you will learn:

✔ Why you dissolve the sugar fully before it boils (or it goes grainy)
✔ The old cold-water test for the soft-ball stage (no thermometer needed)
✔ What soft-ball stage is, and why it makes or breaks the fudge
✔ Why you must NOT stir it while it boils
✔ The real secret: let it cool undisturbed BEFORE you beat it
✔ Why beating it hot makes grainy fudge, and cool makes it smooth
✔ How to beat it until it loses its gloss (the sign it is ready)
✔ Cocoa or chocolate, and how to choose
✔ How it keeps, and why it makes a treasured holiday gift
✔ How to fix fudge that came out grainy, too soft, or too hard

You do not need a candy shop. You need sugar, milk, chocolate, and butter, cooked to soft-ball, cooled, and beaten smooth. And once you cut a square of your own, you will understand what the old kitchens always knew, that the finest, smoothest, richest fudge there is comes not from a box in a store but from your own pot, cooked and cooled and beaten by your own hand.

Now tell me something down in the comments. Did your family make fudge, especially at the holidays, and who was the fudge-maker, for it was often a special skill someone was known for, and did they make it plain or with nuts? And do you remember tins of homemade candy given and received at Christmas? I would dearly love to hear. Tell me.

Until then, take good care of the ones at your table. And keep a kitchen that knows the finest, smoothest, richest fudge there is comes not from a box in a store but from your own pot, cooked and cooled and beaten by your own hand.

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