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Peanut Butter Fudge
Mrs. Kruckman 1/2 C granulated sugar 1/2 C milk 2 T peanut butter Vanilla Boil together until it forms a soft ball when dropped into cold water. Add 2 t vanilla, cool and beat until creamy. Pour into a buttered pie plate and when nearly cold, cut into small squares.
Mrs. Kruckman.
A plain boiled-sugar fudge of the church-supper type: no chocolate, no corn syrup, no thermometer. The whole thing turns on two temperatures, one for the boil and one for the beating.
- Soft ball means 235-240FUse a candy thermometer and pull the pan at 236-238F rather than relying on the cold-water test alone. A few degrees high gives a crumbly, sandy fudge; a few degrees low and it never sets firm enough to cut.
- Cool before beating, and do not stir on the way downThis is the hinge. Let the syrup drop to about 110F, undisturbed, before you start beating. Stirring a hot syrup seeds large sugar crystals and the fudge turns grainy; beating a cool one produces the fine crystals that read as creamy.
- The peanut butter goes in at the startAs written it boils with the sugar and milk, which is fine and gives a mellow, slightly caramelised peanut flavour. Use conventional smooth peanut butter; natural styles that separate can make the mixture look broken, though it comes together in the beating.
- Milk scorchesTwo cups of sugar to half a cup of milk is a thick, easily caught mixture. Use a heavy-bottomed pan, stir until the sugar dissolves, then leave it alone and keep the heat moderate.
- Vanilla listed twiceThe ingredient line says only "Vanilla" and the method specifies 2 teaspoons. Two teaspoons is generous but not wrong for this quantity; a teaspoon is plenty if your extract is strong.
- Pan and yieldThe recipe names no pan size; a standard pie plate gives a fairly thin slab that will cut into a few dozen small squares. Butter it well and score the fudge while it is still slightly warm, then cut through once cold.
- Weather mattersBoiled fudge is sensitive to humidity. On a damp day take the syrup a degree or two higher, or the finished sweet will stay tacky.
Fudge in this form is an American invention of the late nineteenth century, generally traced to women's colleges in the northeastern United States, where students are said to have made it over gas rings in their rooms and passed the method around in letters. It spread quickly because it needed no special equipment beyond a saucepan and a strong arm. Peanut butter arrived in the same window, moving from a health-food novelty of the 1890s to an ordinary grocery item within a couple of decades. Mrs. Kruckman's contribution is about as economical as a recipe can be while still working.