Peanut-Blanketed Chocolate Fudge
we talkin home made fudge yall
The other fudge on this site has macadamias folded through it. This one has whole salted peanuts pressed into the top and barely any chocolate showing, which is a different thing entirely — the nuts sit proud, they stay dry, and every piece has a crust of them.
Pressing them in rather than stirring them through also means you can use far more. Folded into the mixture, nuts past a certain point stop it setting; laid on top there is no limit.
The timing is tight. They go on in the sixty seconds after it is poured, while the surface is still soft enough to take them and firm enough to hold them.
- Makes
- About 2 lb
- Hands-on
- 30 minutes
- Target
- 236°F, soft ball
- Peanuts
- Within 60 seconds
What you need
The fudge
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup corn syrup
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 stick butter, cut up, added at the END
- 2 tsp vanilla
The blanket
- 3 cups whole salted peanuts — roasted, skins off
- Flaky salt
How it goes
1 — Have the peanuts out and ready before you start
In a wide bowl beside the stove. Once the fudge is poured you have about a minute, and that is not enough time to open a packet.
2 — Wash the sides of the pan down before it boils
A wet pastry brush round the inside above the liquid. One stray sugar crystal can seed the batch and turn the whole thing grainy.
3 — Stir until it boils, then put the spoon down
Sugar, milk, cream, cocoa, syrup and salt stirred to dissolve. From the boil onwards it is not touched.
4 — 236°F, soft ball stage
Thermometer in, not touching the base. It sits near 220°F for a long while and then climbs quickly. Watch it from 230°F.
5 — Butter and vanilla laid ON TOP, not stirred
Off the heat, dropped onto the surface and left. Stirring a hot sugar syrup is the classic way to make sand.
6 — Cool undisturbed to 110°F, about an hour
Do not stir it, shake it or move the pan. This is the whole difference between smooth fudge and grainy fudge and it asks nothing of you but patience.
7 — Beat hard until it loses its shine
Wooden spoon, two to four minutes. It turns from glossy and fluid to matt and thick, and you will feel the exact moment.
8 — Pour out and blanket it immediately
Onto parchment, roughly spread into a slab, then the peanuts poured over the whole surface and pressed down flat with your palm. Corner to corner, until almost no chocolate shows.
pro tip — Use the flat of your hand, not a spatula. You can feel how far they are going in, and you want them half buried rather than sitting on top.
9 — Flaky salt, two hours, then break it up
Salt over while the surface is still tacky. Two hours at room temperature, then broken into pieces by hand.
We talkin home made fudge, yall. Three cups of peanuts and not one of them wasted. LFG.