Search the food internet for “peanut butter fudge” and you’ll find various gussied-up versions of familiar childhood flavors: peanut butter and candied bacon mousse; peanut dacquoise; peanut butter-honey tart with ganache. When the original is so good, though, why gussy?
Fudge recipes can be divided roughly into two camps: those that require a candy thermometer and/or a softball test, and those that don’t. The latter has you sift confectioner’s sugar into the melted base flavor, which to my taste produces grainier fudge. I wanted smooth and creamy, so I consulted the Joy of Cooking and discovered that the softball test is easier than it sounds, located a recipe buried in the Marshmallow Fluff official website, and went to work.
Have you felt lately that your holiday gatherings have been a little too mellow, a little too sophisticated and grown-up? If the centerpiece dessert was coffee- or booze-flavored, if you had a cheese course instead of a cake, or if anyone bit into a cookie and remarked on its subtlety or complexity, then yes, your party is too grown-up. Peanut butter fudge is the solution. It is sweet, and not subtly so. It contains marshmallow fluff, totally un-ironically. Round up some under-10s and feed them a couple pieces of this. They’ll produce the amount of noise and destruction appropriate to a thoroughly celebrated holiday.
Return them before New Year’s Eve, though. That’s a holiday for grown-ups.
Peanut butter fudge, generously adapted from MarshmallowFluff.com
2 ½ cups sugar
¼ cup unsalted butter
5 ounces (1 small can) evaporated milk
¾ teaspoon salt
1 7 ½ ounce jar Marshmallow Fluff
9 ounces commercial creamy peanut butter
½ cup cold water
Butter a 9-inch square baking pan; set aside. Pour cold water into a small bowl and set aside next to the stove.
Combine the peanut butter and marshmallow fluff in a microwave-safe bowl. No need to mix; just place both in the bowl and microwave for 10 seconds. You’re not aiming to cook the peanut butter and fluff; you want to soften them ever so slightly to make them easier to mix quickly in to the fudge base in the last step. Once softened, set aside.
In large saucepan combine sugar, butter, evaporated milk, and salt. Stir over low heat until blended. Increase heat to medium and bring to a full rolling boil – a pot full of big bubbles that don’t dissipate when you stir. Boil, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes.
Conduct soft-ball test: drizzle a bit of the sugar-butter-milk mixture into the bowl of cold water. Fish it out – it’s at the softball stage if you can roll it into a ball with your fingers and it has a slight chewiness when you bite into it. If it’s not at that stage, boil an additional minute. Err on the side of underdone. Totally underdone fudge won’t set, but moderately underdone fudge can be helped along with a thorough chilling. Overdone peanut butter fudge resembles sand and is similarly inedible.*
Remove from heat and quickly stir in marshmallow fluff and peanut butter until thoroughly blended, scraping down bowl to make sure no ribbons of peanut butter or fluff remain. Turn into greased pan, smooth top, and let cool at least 4 hours or preferably overnight. Makes two and a half pounds of fudge that will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.
*”Fudge crumbles,” as I tried to brand them, aren’t even good on ice cream. The gritty texture is just too unpleasant.
Mary Kate Aylward 