Café au Lait Fudge

I recently mused on these pages about the joys of making (and sharing) fudge, particularly at this time of year. I concluded with a chocolate fudge recipe.

Fudge isn’t always chocolate, however. I like to make a number of flavors–penuche (a brown-sugar confection), peanut butter, divinity … and this coffee fudge. It’s definitely more sophisticated than its chocolate country cousin.

I like to make it with a strong coffee such as Medaglia D'Oro Caffé Espresso. You may of course use any brand or flavor of instant coffee you like, including (gasp!) hazelnut coffee or some odd substance like that.

The end product tastes like a particularly rich coffee milk shake.

I sent some as a gift to my friend Diana. She reports that her husband Sam inserted a piece of the fudge and a pat of butter into half an acorn squash before cooking it one evening, “and the result was delicious.”

Obviously, I have come up with a versatile confection!

The Fudge

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons instant coffee
3 cups sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 cup milk
1 to 2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

Combine the coffee, sugar, and salt in a heavy, medium-sized saucepan, and stir in the cream, corn syrup, and milk. Place the pan over low to medium heat.

Stir the mixture constantly until it comes to a boil; then cover it for a minute or two to wash down the sides of the pan. Uncover the mixture, and cook it, without stirring, until it reaches the soft-ball stage (234 degrees). Remove from heat.

Add the butter and the vanilla, and let the mixture cool for a few minutes without stirring it (don’t let it get cooler than lukewarm; optimally, it should be a bit warmer than that).

Beat the warm fudge until it becomes creamy and thickens slightly–in other words until it begins to seem fudgy. Quickly pour it into a greased 8-by-8-inch pan, and let it cool. This recipe makes about 2 dozen pieces of fudge.

Naturally, I had to try a LITTLE piece of fudge myself!