Old-Fashioned Chocolate Fudge with Peanuts

5 from 3 votes

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Fudge with Peanuts

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Fudge with Peanuts is a bit finicky and time-consuming to make. However, the effort is totally worth it. The result is a candy that is velvety smooth with a deep chocolate taste.

Prep Time10

Cook Time21

Cooling/Beating Time1 25

Total Time31

Course: Candy

Cuisine: American

Servings: pieces of fudge

Calories: 82kcal

Ingredients

3 cups (21 ounces) granulated sugar
⅔ cup (2.4 ounces) Special Dark Cocoa (See Tip 1)
⅛ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups (12 ounces) milk (See Tip 2)
¼ cup (½ stick, 2 ounce) unsalted butter (See Tip 3)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup unsalted peanuts (See Tip 4)

Instructions

Line an 8-inch square pan with buttered parchment paper or buttered aluminum foil. (See Tip 5)
Combine sugar, cocoa and salt in a heavy 4-quart saucepan. (See Tip 6)
Add milk; whisk to thoroughly combine the ingredients making sure that there are no sugar or cocoa lumps.
Place pan over medium heat and bring to a rolling boil stirring constantly. This will take 8 to 10 minutes.
Fit a digital thermometer to pan; allow to continue boiling without stirring until mixture reaches 234° F. (See Tip 7)
Remove pan from heat; add the butter and vanilla extract. Do not stir. Allow mixture to reach 110° F or lukewarm. (See Tip 8)
Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until it thickens and starts to lose its gloss, about 8 minutes. After about 5 minutes, add the nuts if desired. Continue beating to desired consistency and look.
Quickly spread the mixture in the prepared pan; cool completely. Cut into 1-inch squares. (See Tip 9)
Yield about 48 pieces of fudge.

Notes

You can also use regular unsweetened cocoa powder.
I used whole milk. However, you could also use 2% milk.
I cut the butter into 1-inch pieces. However since the mixture is very hot when the butter is added, this is really not necessary.
Adding nuts is optional. However, if you want to use nuts, you could also use toasted pecans pieces, toasted walnut pieces or toasted almond pieces.
I would avoid using a 9-inch pan unless you want thin pieces of fudge. To prepare the pan, I cut two pieces of parchment paper in rectangles that were as wide as the pan, and long enough for over-hang on both sides. The parchment paper that I used was 15-inches long, so was the perfect length. I buttered the pan and placed one of the pieces of parchment paper in the pan. Then, I buttered the parchment paper and placed the other piece to overlap the other sides. I secured the parchment paper with binder clips. The reason for buttering the pan and the parchment paper was to ensure that the parchment paper stuck to the pan and stuck together.
When the fudge mixture boils, it will expand quite a bit. Therefore, you want to make sure that your pan is large enough to accommodate the boiling mixture.
234° F is the soft-ball stage. At this point, the syrup will form a soft, flexible ball when dropped in cold water. If you don't have a thermometer, use this method to determine when the mixture has reached the appropriate temperature.
It took 1 hour and 15 minutes for the mixture to reach 110° F. It's important that you do not stir the mixture while it is cooling. If you don't have a thermometer, you can guesstimate the lukewarm temperature if you can comfortably place your hand on the outside of the pan.
I used a bread knife to cut the fudge. The reason was so that the peanuts would be cleanly cut. Also, the knife was long enough to cut entire strips of the fudge.

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