Condensed Milk Fudge Revisited!
 

Greg suggested some modifications to the standard quickie fudge recipe... which I tried and I could barely tell it from the cooked on the stove variety.

Basically:
14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
2 1/3 c. chocolate chips (I used the cheap ones from Aldi/Save-A-Lot)
2 squares (1 oz. each) baking chocolate
2-3 T. butter

Throw everything in a big bowl together and follow Greg's instructions.

Yay! You found that recipe! :D

I really like that stuff. If you have the ingredients and a microwave, you're only seconds away from some really good fudge. I have learned that you can heat the milk seperately and dump the cholocate chips in after you take it out of the microwave.

If you want to add vanilla, mix it with the milk after you take it out of the microwave, before you put in the chips.

I don't chop my squares very small, so I feel safer melting the chocolate in the microwave.

Definitely needs some walnuts next time!

I like the idea of using unsweetened baking chocolate, too. Then it might not come out so sweet. Really good fudge should scream "chocolate!"

It's got a zing to it that hides the taste of the sweetened condensed milk. The butter helps with that too; you always put butter in made-from-scratch fudge!

Hubby claims he could still tell it was quickie fudge, but I think he's full of something nasty.

Yeah, there's something going on with the butter that's more than just the flavor it adds. A bit of vanilla and a pinch of salt help, too.

This is great! Crystal has all the ingredients so we'll give this recipe a try on a cold rainy night! Like now! :)

:lol: I'm out of chocolate chips. They're on the grocery list!

We tried it last night and it turned out great! So easy, too!

We even have some left and I'm eating a piece right now and its STILL good!

Hm, I might fiddle with this more. My mom used to have a fudge recipe with unsweetened, semi-sweet, and sweet chocolate...

Its good because its so smooth. When I try to make fudge from scratch it comes out sugary. Its more chocolatey too. I think thats from the bakers chocolate I put in it.

The tricks to scratch fudge:
1) use a big heavy pot, like a pressure cooker without the lid
2) have a timer or a watch with a sweep-second-hand handy so you can time exactly 5 minutes from when it boils hard
3) stir non-stop for the 5 minutes
4) take off the heat and stir in marshmallows (or fluff), chocolate and walnuts, one after the other, as soon as the previous addition is melted and mixed in

But the condensed milk people have done all that for you! We just needed Greg to figure out to put butter and dark chocolate in it. Condensed milk has its own unique flavor, which is not what you want in your fudge...

This fudge is so good that I don't DARE make any!

:lol: Yep! I had a whole serving platterful (the dish I used to cool it on) disappear in about 3 days.

Maybe it will last longer if I cut it and store it in a tin box! (My mom keeps the boxes that fruitcake and cookies come in for storage of similar goodies.)

You and me both, Monica! I think I'd better stock up on some more of Warlokk's meshes before I make any of this fudge at home! I'll need the wider sizes!

I wonder how many leg lefts equals one piece of fudge.

That's an interesting challenge! If you can figure out how many calories you burn in one leg lift, I'll calculate how many calories there are in a piece of fudge! :)

I fear you won't like the answer.

Hey, I'd probably like the answer better than Coco. My legs weigh more than hers, and therefore should burn more calories to lift them!

I'd guess it's more that the simple mechanical energy of lifting your leg because you're also working against the opposing muscles, but adding in those weights probably skews the percentages toward the mechanics.

Let's see... wild guessing that a leg is 20% of the total body weight and swagging that Coco weighs in at maybe 120 lbs, each leg would weigh about 24 lbs. Another wild guess that the center of gravity of leg lifts a foot off the ground and the ankle (with the weight) lifts two feet, we come up with 24x1 + 5x2 = 34 ft-lbs of energy per leg lift.

1 foot-pound = 0.324048267 calories, so we get 11 calories. Now for the bad news: Dietary calories are kilocalories of energy, so the real answer is 0.011 dietary calories.

Now, assuming there is 1 tablespoon of sugar in a piece of fudge (another wild guess), that candy contains 3*18 = 54 dietary calories.

So the answer is 4,901 leg lifts per piece of fudge, plus or minus a few thousand, assuming very aggressive leg lifts and a rather small piece of fudge.

Serving idea: Put the fudge in paper or foil muffin liners!

Filled to the brim, one of these babies sells for $1.79 at the grocery store!

This is based on some small-batch commercial fudge I bought at the grocery store today.

Crystal, I know what you mean by "sugary;" I bought some fudge at the farmer's market on Saturday and gah, it was gritty! I'll just have to remember to buy the fudge from the Amish next week and get cookies from the lady with the gritty fudge.