OOOOHHHHHH FUDGE!

Hi again folks, it's ME, Chef G., and today I'm going to help you make a sweet, sweet holiday treat.  It's a treat so sweet that it will single-handedly transform your boring family Christmas into a week-long, end-of-the-year, festival of chocolate & sugar.  It's a treat so sweet it will make your taste buds dance with delight.  It's a treat so sweet that I can almost guarantee three or four brand new cavities for the brand new year.  It's a treat that will send your primary physician into a state of shock the next time he checks your blood glucose levels.  In fact, it's SO sweet that even ants, honey bees and hummingbirds want nothing to do with it for fear of lapsing into a diabetic coma.

Q: What is this treat of which I speak?

A: It's FUDGE.  

Or, as my family calls it, "BUDGE."

 

I'll be using my mom's tried and true recipe.  It's better than any fudge you can buy on Mackinac Island, on the boardwalks of the eastern seaboard, or any other U.S. tourist destination.  Maybe that's because of the love she put into it.  Her annual batch of budge was a major holiday tradition that my brothers and I looked forward to all year long.  After she died, I took it upon myself to carry on the tradition.

Guess what?  The holiday season is upon us.  Ergo, it is time to whip up a beautiful batch of budge.  Let's go!

Next, add a whopping 4-1/4 cups of sugar to the mix. 

Bring the sauce to a boil while stirring frequently.  When it becomes a bubbly golden syrup, turn down the heat and let it simmer for six more minutes.

This is where the real fun begins.

At the six minute mark, add a 12-oz. bag of San Francisco semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Stir them into the syrup and watch them quickly melt.  It's cool to see the mixture slowly transform from golden to light brown to dark brown.

Then you'll add 12 oz. of Baker's German Chocolate . . . 

. . . followed by 8 oz. (or 7 oz.) of marshmallow creme.

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At this point I think it's appropriate to expose a little foul play by the Kraft Foods Corporation--the worlds largest manufacturer of marshmallow products.  Sometime in the last few years, they changed their 8 oz. jars of marshmallow creme into 7 oz. jars.  I have no doubt in my mind that they knew a lot of recipes call for eight ounces of their sticky white stuff and they saw an opportunity to trick consumers into buying an extra jar every time we made whatever we were making.  In this case, budge.

I admit I was suckered into that scam for the first couple of years, but not THIS year.  Seven ounces will certainly do the trick.  Sorry Kraft, but you can jet puff that last 8th of an ounce straight up the tail end of your digestive system.

                                      

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Some people like walnuts in their budge.  Not me.  Whenever somebody asks me if I like my budge with or without walnuts, I paraphrase the great Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, Randy Moss.  I proclaim, "straight budge, homey."

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So, I was stirring the 7 ounces of marshmallow into the concoction when I noticed something pretty cool.  I summoned my film crew to make another fine Chef G. video.

After a few more minutes of stirring, it was ready to pour.

So I poured it into a 9" X 13" pan lined with parchment paper and selfied one more video enlisted my cinematographer to film one more video.

                

After a few hours of cooling, you can safely take the budge out of the refrigerator and flip the contents of the pan onto a cutting board.  My mom always cut the big slab into pieces approximately 1.5 square inches in area.  That's what I do too.  

Then I stack the pieces in a container with wax paper between each layer.

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I'll let you in on a little secret.  I don't really care for sweet treats all that much.  Not pie.  Not cake. Not candy bars.  Not ice cream.  Not cookies.  Maybe that's because I ate so much of that stuff in my first 50 years of life.

I make an exception for my mom's fudge.  (And, once in a while, Oreos.)

Well, it is now time to taste test my batch of budge.

The second it hit my taste buds, I recognized perfection. 

The second it hit my teeth, I knew I'd have to visit my dentist after the New Year.