My brother Blair made the best fudge in the world. He followed the old recipe in the Edmonds Cookery Book, which was first published in 1908 and is a beloved Kiwi classic. Blair went to boarding school in Napier, which is two hours away from our hometown of Wairoa. I’ll never forget my excitement when he used to come home a day early and pick me up from school. We’d walk home together and he would have made chocolate fudge for us to eat. I still love both Blair and fudge, though we make it a little differently now at Kai, adding peated whiskey for extra sass. We hand wrap it in small portions to have with a Cloud Picker double espresso, a sweet little parcel of joy.
Makes 64 pieces
800g dark brown sugar
400g Demerara sugar
400g caster sugar
500g salted butter
2 x 400g tins of condensed milk
100g golden syrup
10g flaky sea salt
175ml milk
175ml Connemara Peated Single Malt Irish Whiskey
40ml vanilla extract
75g dark chocolate, chopped
A word of warning before you begin: boiling sugar is no joke. It can burn badly, so be extra careful when stirring and pouring the fudge, and don't even think about giving it a little taste until it’s cool.
Put the sugars, butter, condensed milk, golden syrup, flaky sea salt and regular milk in your biggest heavy-based pot. You need a big pot because the mixture will bubble up a lot when it cooks and you don’t want it to overflow, so if in doubt, split it between two pots.
Bring to a boil, stirring gently but constantly with your longest wooden spoon, scraping the bottom of the pan as it cooks so it doesn’t stick and burn. Cook at a boil for 10–15 minutes, until it reaches 116°C on a candy thermometer. If you don’t have a thermometer, you’re looking to get to the soft ball stage. Using a spoon, drop a little mixture into a bowl of ice water – if it forms a soft, round ball that doesn’t flatten immediately and doesn’t stick to your fingers, it’s ready. Take the pan off the heat, then stir in the whiskey and vanilla.
Carefully pour the mixture into a large bowl and whisk with an electric mixer at full speed for 5–10 minutes, until it starts to thicken. The longer you mix it once it starts to thicken, the more crumbly your fudge will be.
Line a large baking tray with non-stick baking paper – we use a 45cm x 33cm sheet pan (aka a half sheet pan), but if you don’t have one that large, use two regular-sized baking trays. Pour the fudge into the tray, smoothing it out flat. Put in the fridge and allow to set overnight.
Put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl set on top of a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl. When the chocolate has melted, drizzle it all over the fudge and put it back in the fridge again to set the chocolate. Trim the edges, then portion into pieces.
Wrap each piece in non-stick baking paper, then store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two weeks.
From The Kai Cookbook by Jess Murphy
