Cocoa Fudge
Two cups of granulated sugar, one ounce of butter, two-thirds cup of milk, two ounces of cocoa, one-half teaspoon of Larkin Vanilla Flavoring Extract. Prepare the same as Chocolate Fudge.
A four-line fudge that assumes you already know the method from the chocolate version a few pages earlier. The measurements are sound; what is missing is the temperature, and that is the whole recipe.
- The missing methodThe chocolate fudge recipe it refers back to is not reproduced here, so the method has to be inferred. Standard practice for fudge of this kind: combine sugar, milk, butter and cocoa in a heavy saucepan, stir until the sugar dissolves, then boil without stirring to the soft-ball stage, 234-240F on a thermometer. Take it off the heat, add the vanilla, and let it cool undisturbed to about 110F before beating.
- Beating is the hingeFudge sets its texture when you beat it after cooling, not while it is hot. Beat it boiling-hot and you get coarse, gritty crystals; beat it at 110F until it loses its gloss and thickens, then pour at once into a buttered 8-inch pan.
- Cocoa by weightTwo ounces of cocoa is roughly two-thirds of a cup of modern unsweetened cocoa powder. Weigh it if you can. Sift it with the sugar before the milk goes in or it will float in lumps.
- One ounce of butterTwo tablespoons. Butter was often given by weight in recipes of this period; the quantity here is small because its job is to soften the crystal structure, not to enrich.
- Milk, not creamTwo-thirds cup of whole milk. Skim or low-fat milk will still reach temperature but gives a drier, more brittle set.
- The branded extractLarkin Vanilla Flavoring Extract was the publisher's own product. Any good vanilla extract does the same work; add it off the heat, since the alcohol carries the aroma away if it boils.
- HumiditySugar work draws moisture from the air. On a wet day fudge takes longer to set and can stay tacky; cook a degree or two higher rather than extending the beating.
- YieldAbout one pound, or roughly 25 squares from an 8-inch pan. Cut it while it is firm but not fully cold.
Fudge is an American confection of the late nineteenth century, generally traced to women's colleges in the northeastern United States, where students made it over gas jets and chafing dishes and passed the recipes between schools. It sits at the point where crystallized sugar candy met cheap, reliably fine-ground cocoa: Dutch processing and improved presses had made cocoa powder a household staple rather than a druggist's item, and the main difference between this recipe and the chocolate fudge it refers back to is whether you use powder or a bar -- though a bar also brings its own cocoa butter. The repeated brand name in the ingredient list marks this as a company cookbook, the sort of premium booklet a mail-order firm sent to its customers, where the flavoring extract is always the house one.