Eat Your Heart Out: Peanut butter fudge

As Thanksgiving approaches, I feel compelled to share a holiday tradition for this week’s recipe. Every year, for as long as I can remember, I have had the pleasure of indulging in my aunt’s peanut butter “dream” fudge. What I find interesting is that this particular recipe has seen many different iterations over the years. Fortunately, my family eventually settled on a final draft of the fudge, which is what I am lucky enough to share with our community today. I hold fond memories of this recipe, as it has been present at every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter at my house for at least the past decade. I hope you enjoy it!

To make this fudge, you’re going to want to combine your dry ingredients together in a bowl, cook your wet ingredients and then pour the wet ingredients into the bowl containing the dry ingredients. The first time I tried making this recipe, I found the process quite bizarre, but it’s the only way to give your fudge a good texture. First, you will want to prepare your dry ingredients, as there won’t be any time to do so once you start cooking. Combine 2 1/4 cups of peanut butter with 1 cup of flour, 16 ounces of marshmallow fluff and 1 teaspoon of vanilla, then stir together with a fork. If you’d like, you can also add a cup of walnuts to the fudge, which gives it a unique, hearty texture, but they’re not necessary by any means. This batter will be extremely sticky, even though the flour is meant to help alleviate that issue, so this may take a few minutes. Once the ingredients are completely mixed together, you can set the bowl aside and venture on to the cooking!

Combine 4 cups of white sugar with 1 cup of whole milk and 2 sticks of butter. Make sure that the sticks of butter are sliced down their tablespoon markers so that they will melt quicker. Then begin to heat the mixture on high heat. Constantly stir the ingredients with a metal whisk to avoid burning the milk and butter. After a few minutes, the liquid will begin to boil. At this time, it will expand and start to give off significantly more heat. Do not panic and remove the pot from the burner when this happens (like I did the first time I made this fudge). The ingredients need time to boil to ensure that the fudge won’t be too soft. After allowing the ingredients to boil for a couple minutes, quickly pour them into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix them together. Pour the fudge into a 9-by-13 pan and let it cool for 20 minutes at room temperature. Unfortunately, you will want to allow the fudge to cool further in your refrigerator overnight before eating, but trust me when I say that your patience will pay off. Happy baking!