Home › Fudges › Fudges: Penuche
Fudges: Penuche
Brown Sugar Fudge or Penuche 2 tablespoons butter 2 cups brown sugar 3/4 cup milk or thin cream 3/4 cup chopped walnuts Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and cream, stir until sugar is dissolved, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238 degrees F., or until candy will form a soft ball when tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon, or work with a spatula, until candy begins to get sugary. Add the walnuts, press into a buttered pan, and mark in squares.
Cocoanut Penuche 1 tablespoon butter 2 cups brown sugar 3/4 cup cream or milk 3/4 cup shredded cocoanut 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and cream, stir until dissolved, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238 degree F., or until a soft ball is tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon, or work with a spatula, until candy begins to get sugary. Add the walnuts, press into a buttered pan, and mark in squares. Fig Penuche 2 tablespoons butter 2 cups brown sugar 3/4 cup milk or thin cream 3/4 cup chopped walnut meats 3/4 cup figs cut in pieces Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and cream, stir until dissolved, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238 degrees F., or until candy will form a very soft ball when tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon or work with a spatula, until candy begins to get sugary. Stir in walnuts and figs, press into a buttered pan, and mark in squares.
Fruit Penuche 2 cups light brown sugar 7/8 cup thin cream 1/2 cup raisins or dates 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Put sugar and cream in saucepan, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238 degrees F., or until candy will form a soft ball when tried in cold water. Pour on a marble slab or large platter, and let stand until cool. Work with a spatula until creamy, then add raisins cut in small pieces, and vanilla. Spread evenly in a buttered pan, using the hands, having the mixture three fourths inch deep. When firm, cut in three fourths inch squares. Marshmallow Penuche 1 tablespoon butter 2 cups brown sugar Few grains salt 1/4 cup milk 10 marshmallows 1/2 cup nut meats Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and milk, stir until boiling point is reached, and boil to 230 degrees F., or until it forms a soft mass that does not dissolve when tried in cold water. Remove from fire, add marshmallows cut in pieces, and pour on marble slab, large platter, or agate tray that has been wiped with a damp cloth.
When cool, add nut meats cut in pieces, and work with a spatula until candy begins to get sugary. Shape in a flat cake on the slab, and when firm, cut in squares.
Pecan Penuche 1 tablespoon butter 2 cups brown sugar 3/4 cup cream or milk 3/4 cup chopped pecan nut meats 1/3 teaspoon salt Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and cream, stir until dissolved, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238 degrees F., or until a soft ball is formed when candy is tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon, or work with a spatula, until candy begins to get sugary. Stir in the chopped pecans and salt, press into a buttered pan, and mark in squares; or push from tip of spoon upon waxed paper in small round portions.
Peanut Penuche Follow directions for Penuche, using three-fourths cup chopped roasted peanuts in place of pecans.
Six variations on one formula: brown sugar boiled with cream to the soft-ball stage, cooled undisturbed, then beaten to a crystalline set. The book gives real thermometer readings, which makes it unusually easy to follow.
- The hinge: cool before beating"Leave undisturbed until cool" is the whole technique. Agitating hot syrup throws large crystals and gives grainy candy; let it fall to about 110F (barely warm to the back of the hand) before the spoon or spatula touches it. Beat only until the gloss dulls and it thickens, then get it into the pan fast.
- 238F and the cold-water test238F is soft-ball, and the two tests are meant to confirm each other. Calibrate the thermometer in boiling water first and adjust for altitude: subtract roughly 1F from the target for every 500 feet above sea level.
- An error in the Cocoanut PenucheThat recipe lists shredded cocoanut and vanilla but the method says "add the walnuts." It is a printer's slip carried over from the first recipe; add the coconut and the vanilla, the latter off the heat.
- Thin creamPeriod "thin cream" was the lighter of the two creams cookbooks called for; half-and-half or light cream is the nearest modern stand-in, though the fat content varied. Whole milk works, as the recipes allow, but sets slightly firmer and less creamy.
- Brown sugarUse light brown for a clean penuche flavour; dark brown gives a heavier molasses note and a softer set.
- The marshmallow versionIt stops at 230F, lower than the others, and the marshmallows are cut in off the heat rather than boiled.
- Marble slab, platter, agate trayAny large cold surface serves; a marble or granite worktop, a chilled sheet pan, or a heavy platter. "Agate" here is agateware, the mottled enamelled steel of the period. Pouring out speeds cooling and stops carryover cooking in a hot pan.
- WeatherSugar work is hygroscopic. On a humid day penuche stays tacky and refuses to firm; make it when the air is dry, and store it airtight with waxed paper between layers.
- YieldThe batches are small; the number of pieces depends on how deep you spread it and how you mark it. It keeps about a week at room temperature.
Penuche is the New England spelling of the Spanish and Mexican panocha or penuche, a word generally traced to unrefined brown sugar and, by extension, to candy made from it. The dish is often said to have taken hold in American home kitchens alongside chocolate fudge, and cookbooks filed it under fudges because the method is identical: boil to soft ball, cool, beat to a fine crystal. What distinguishes it is the absence of chocolate, so the flavour is entirely brown sugar and cooked cream, close to a soft caramel that has been made to set grainy on purpose. The string of variations here is characteristic of candy books of the period, when a single base recipe could be spun out into a page of named sweets by changing only what is stirred in at the end.