Cafe Lula

Look! Fudge! I made this! With a sugar thermometer! It was stressful. But yummy. And now I can check it off my to do list. Hurray!

I thought it would be difficult but it was actually fairly simple. I did find it stressful because I was scared of burning the sugar, but this appears to be much harder to do than I thought.

The first thing I did was test my sugar thermometer by boiling water in a pan and measuring the temperature. It only registered 97C so I assumed my thermometer would always register a few degrees lower than the actual temperature. The fudge was the perfect texture from the fridge, but after a few hours out it was quite soft, so I suggest storing it in the fridge (although maybe I needed to cook it a bit longer).

We were fairly evenly split as to whether the butterscotch or chocolate fudge was better. I vote chocolate, but both are yummy.

Chocolate and butterscotch stripy fudge

From the August 2011 issue of delicious magazine

Cut into 64 2.5cm squares or 128 1.25cm by 2.5cm (recipe says 25 4cm squares but that is actually madness)

Ingredients:

For the chocolate fudge:

Groundnut oil, for greasing

500g caster sugar

2 tbsp glucose syrup

300ml double cream

150g unsalted butter, chopped

150g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

For the butterscotch fudge:

500g soft light brown sugar

2 tbsp glucose syrup

300ml double cream

150g unsalted butter, chopped

1 vanilla pod, split

1 tbsp icing sugar

Use a small amount of groundnut oil to lightly grease a 20cm square tin. Line the base with baking paper.

Make the chocolate fudge by combining the sugar, glucose syrup, double cream, chocolate and butter in a large, deep saucepan. Bring the mixture to the boil slowly and stir until everything is dissolved.

When the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat to a rapid simmer. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until the sugar thermometer registers 117C, stirring occasionally to stop the mixture catching at the bottom of the pan. Once it has reached 117C, remove the pan from the heat and pour the mixture carefully into a large bowl. Leave the mixture to stand for 10 minutes.

Using an electric whisk. beat the mixture for 8-10 minutes, until it thickens. Pour into the oiled tin and transfer to the fridge to set. The recipe says leave for 5 hours, but I just left it in the fridge for an hour while I made the butterscotch fudge, then poured the butterscotch on top of the chocolate and then put the tin back in the fridge for 5 hours.

Make the butterscotch fudge by combining all the ingredients (apart from the icing sugar) in a pan and cook according to the instructions for the chocolate fudge. When you have allowed the mixture to cool in the large bowl for 10 minutes, remove the vanilla pod with a fork and sift in the tbsp of icing sugar before whisking. Pour over the chocolate fudge and then put the tin in the fridge for 5 hours for the fudge to set.

Cut into pieces. The recipe says 25 4cm pieces, but I recommend cutting the square into 8 by 16.