SIGH. "White trash fudge"

Well, yesterday, I posted my recipe for the secret artichoke dip. And in passing I mentioned "white trash fudge" . And that's what you folks want to hear about , huh? Ok.

I found this recipe some years ago, when I was going through some recipes from King Arthur Flour. The woman who wrote it fessed up that "we really shouldn't make this, and we're ashamed of it." She added "but boy is it GOOD."

Honestly, I'm not all that fond of it. Neither is my good buddy Keith, and it's yet another reason why I adore him so much. Having said that, I repeat that I could make TONS of this, and there is a large sector of my buddies who would not miss another type of cookie as long as they could have this. "DUDE. Got anymore of that fudge stuff?" Yup, that's what I hear.

Strictly speaking, this is not a fudge. It's actually a toffee. When butter is added to sugar and cooked to a high enough temperature, you get a thick syrup that is technically toffee. If you leave out the butter, you have caramel. Fudge has a much different process for manufacture, but I guess the high amount of chocolate in the original recipe is what leads people to call it fudge.

Call it whatever you want. I call it sweet, over the top, and one of the most popular things I make.

I STRONGLY suggest you get a good thermometer for making this. You're going to be cooking sugar to what is called the "hard crack" stage. No jokes, please. "Hard crack" is 300 degrees. That is hot. That is hot enough to burn you REALLY badly. I had a burn from this once that did not heal for two months. So you're working with something very dangerous, and the least you can do is make sure that the temperature is right. If you cook it too hard, you will get black soot. If you cook it too low, it will not set. If you dont' have a thermometer, what you are reduced to doing is having a glass of water beside the pot, and dropping teaspoons of syrup into it. The syrup balls up, and then you have to determine - I'm not kidding you - is it hard, and can I crack it ? Do you REALLY want to do that?

Ok, here we go. First, you need two cups of non-chocolate "stuff." In the "classy" version of it that I make, you use good quality, roasted nuts. You can use tinned nuts, candied cherries (I can't believe I just recommended that), mini marshmallows, peppermint candies, just about anything. If you use more than one thing, mix the things up, and separate them into two equal piles.

You will also need a pound of chocolate chips, or a pound of a mix of chocolate chips and other stuff. I usually use bittersweet chips when I make the high quality stuff, but I have made this with butterscotch chips, with white chocolate, and with milk chocolate. You can cut the quantity of this in half and add other stuff, but you need a pound.

You also need a baking sheet. If you happen to have a jelly roll pan, which is smaller, that is ideal. A regular sheet is fine though. Put a piece of parchment down on it, and grease the paper. You can use one of those sprays here, they work fine. Then put half the chocolate mixture down, and then half of the other mixture.

In a deep saucepan , i.e, one that will hold at least four times as much material as you're adding, melt two sticks of unsalted butter. Then add 1.5 cups of sugar, 3 tablespoons of water, and a tablespoon of light corn syrup if you have it. The corn syrup will help the pouring of the product at the end. Stir this once, and then DONT STIR IT ANYMORE. If you do, you may find crystals falling out like rain and spoiling all of your work. Heat the mixture over a medium flame. You'll see an interesting gradation of colors: it will start out pale, almost invisibly yellow, and then begin bubbling and go to darker yellow, then gold, and then it will start to brown. This is when you have to watch the temperature, because it can go from brownish gold to black in seconds. Have the thermometer ready, and as soon as you reach 300, cover your hand with a mitt or cloth, pick up the pan, and pour it QUICKLY over the goodies on the sheet. With a lightly greased spatula, spread it out as well as you can, because it's going to harden fast. Then, get the remaining goodies, pour them over the candy and press them down with the spatula (I confess that I usually use my hand, which is fairly seasoned at this point. Don't you do that if you aren't somewhat callused - PHYSICALLY).

You are done. This is allowed to cool at room temperature, however, in my experience, it needs a couple of hours in the fridge to really firm up. Else, the chocolate remains fairly liquid and messy.

When you take it out of the fridge, you get to do what is my favorite part of it: crack it into irregular pieces. You can do that by hitting it with a blunt object, or just picking the sheet off of the paper and smacking it down. You will get irregular pieces, but so what? Some will powder, and you can put that over ice cream or do something like that.

This candy lasts forever. Put it in a metal tin, don't let it get wet, and you can eat it as long as you have it, which won't be long. And play around with different combinations because you ARE going to be asked to make it again.

OK, you asked for it, you have it. Don't sue Annalena if you lose a filling.