Holiday Peppermint Fudge

I have a love-hate relationship with fudge. I love to eat it, and my standard for excellence is Mackinac Island fudge... when I was a kid we used to go there a lot, and one of my favourite things was to watch them making fudge, with the wooden paddles on marble tables. And then eating freshly made fudge was total heaven!

And then there's the hate part. I hate making it. Anything that requires a candy thermometer is not my friend. Either I end up with a chocolate rock or I end up with something you can eat with a spoon, suitable only for ice cream topping.

This is neither. This is fudge, with the texture I love. And tasty! And easy. Also, it's not my recipe... it comes from Skinny Ms., and I couldn't be more pleased to have found it.

The ingredients are simple, and really not all that expensive (assuming you already own coconut oil, which is very spendy but very useful). Chocolate chips, coconut oil, coconut milk, honey, salt, peppermint extract, and walnuts. I doubled the recipe, which is why there are so very many chocolate chips in the picture.

About the coconut milk: I used cream of coconut because I was on my third store and NONE of them had a can of coconut milk I could buy for love or money. They are not the same. It's like the difference between evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk, with cream of coconut resembling the latter. I was a little worried, but it came out just fine! And now I think that's what I'll use from here on out, because I'm afraid to mess with a good thing.

Combine the chocolate chips, coconut milk, honey, and salt in a large saucepan and turn the heat to medium-low. I opted to use 2/3 milk chocolate and 1/3 semi-sweet, but you can do whatever you want. It took something like 10-15 minutes for the chips to melt, and I stirred them every few minutes to make sure the chocolate didn't burn and stick to the pan.

Once the chocolate is melted, stir in the peppermint extract and coconut oil until well-combined. Then stir in the walnuts (which are listed as optional, but I used them because I love them).

Notice the distinct absence of a candy thermometer? That's what I love best!

Then set the pan on the back burner (or elsewhere on a hot pad if you need the stove) and walk away for about 4 hours. I honestly don't know how long I let it cool because I was doing other things, but it was at least 4 hours and less than 8. It says to then stir it "vigorously", which is eventually possible but at first it felt like I was never going to get the spoon moving.

The recipe says to oil a casserole dish and pour in the fudge. I've met me... I used nonstick aluminum foil instead, and it worked beautifully. Also, about that whole "pour fudge into dish" thing; ain't gonna happen. It's way too thick to pour.* What I ended up doing was scraping it into each pan, then wetting my hands and working it into the corners and smoothing the top.

From there, all you have to do is cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate them. The recipe says to refrigerate at least four hours and then cut. I agree with the refrigerating at least four hours part (I made mine a couple of days ahead), but I highly recommend taking it out at least 30 minutes before you want to cut it. It's not that you can't cut it when it's cold, it's that it takes way more effort than I was willing to put forth.*

*It's entirely possible if you use coconut milk rather than cream of coconut it isn't this thick or hard to cut, so if you make it that way please let me know.

A 9x9-inch dish really does make 30 pieces, much to my surprise. It's really rich, so you don't need a very big piece. This was the first time in my life I've made fudge that came out right on the first try, and it was amazing. I'm going to keep it as my go-to recipe, using different extracts and nuts as I want.

Holiday Peppermint Fudge

Serves 30

Ingredients
2-1/2 cups chocolate chips
1/3 cup canned coconut milk, (not the carton milk...canned is best for this recipe)
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar, optional honey
Dash of kosher or sea salt
1 teaspoon pure peppermint extract, optional vanilla extract
1 tablespoon melted coconut oil
1/2 cup diced walnuts (optional)
Again, not my recipe. This comes from Skinny Ms.

Calories: 143

Total Fat: 10 g

Saturated Fat: 5 g

Trans Fat: 0 g

Cholesterol: 0 mg

Sodium: 35 mg

Carbohydrates: 17 g

Sugars: 14 g

Dietary Fiber: 1 g

Protein: 1 g

Oddly, the given nutrition information is based on 20 servings, so I'm not quite sure what's up with that. But I think we can suffice it to say that fudge, regardless of how it's made, is not really anything like good for you. But it is tasty, and it's a nice treat now and then.