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Smith College Fudge
Melt one-quarter cup of butter. Mix together in a separate dish one cup of white sugar, one cup of brown sugar, one-quarter cup of molasses and one-half cup of cream. Add this to the butter, and after it has been brought to a boil continue boiling for two and one-half minutes, stirring rapidly. Then add two squares of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, scraped fine. Boil this five minutes, stirring it first rapidly, and then more slowly towards the end. After it has been taken from the fire, add one and one-half teaspoonfuls of vanilla. Then stir constantly until the mass thickens. Pour into buttered pan and set in a cool place.
A late-19th-century college fudge, sweeter and more caramel-forward than the modern cocoa version. The timings assume a coal range and a cook who judged by eye; a candy thermometer settles the matter.
- The hinge: temperature, not minutesTwo and a half minutes plus five minutes tells you nothing reliable on a modern burner. Cook the mixture to 236-238F (soft-ball stage) and stop there. Undercooked fudge stays syrupy; a few degrees over turns it hard and dry.
- Baker's Premium No. 1This was the unsweetened baking chocolate. A "square" is conventionally reckoned as 1 ounce, so two squares is taken as about 2 oz unsweetened chocolate, though the period product came as larger cakes to be scraped or shaved. Chop it rather than scraping; it melts into the hot syrup either way.
- CreamPeriod "cream" was unstandardized and often nearer today's light cream than heavy. Heavy cream gives the richest, glossiest set; half-and-half or milk will work but gives a softer, less glossy one.
- MolassesUse unsulphured baking molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and will dominate the chocolate.
- Beating"Stir constantly until the mass thickens" is the graining step. The recipe has you begin at once; modern practice is to let the mixture cool to about 110F first, since beating while it is still very hot tends to produce coarse, gritty crystals.
- Vanilla off the fireAdding it after removing from the heat is deliberate; vanilla flavor volatilizes in boiling syrup.
- Pan and yieldNearer a pound and a half of fudge, going by the weight of sugar alone. A buttered 8x4-inch loaf pan gives a thick slab; an 8-inch square pan gives thinner pieces. Score it while still warm and cut when fully set.
- ScorchingSugar, molasses and cream together catch quickly. A heavy-bottomed saucepan and a pan noticeably larger than the volume of syrup prevent both scorching and boil-over.
Fudge belongs to American women's colleges in the 1890s, when chafing dishes and alcohol lamps in dormitory rooms made candy-making one of the few cooking projects a student could undertake. Recipes labeled Vassar, Wellesley and Smith fudge are often said to have circulated in student letters and cookbooks before they were standardized in print, and each version acquired a distinguishing quirk; the Smith formula tends to be identified by its brown sugar and molasses, which push it toward penuche. Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, collected these college recipes into its promotional booklets, each of which called for its chocolate by name.