sweets and desserts
by madeline2020

You’ve heard of Rocky Road

Now meet Autobahn Fudge

When I was the manager of a small department and living on a very tight budget I had to be cost conscious when buying Christmas gifts for my team. The idea of making food rather than buying tchotchkes popped into my head. This recipe is one of multiple fudge recipes I invented that year.

One employee was dairy free so alternatives are included for some ingredients here. Note that marshmallow creme is made with eggs, and chocolate always seems to have some level of dairy so not truly dairy free/vegan. But the person I made it for was fine with 85% dark chocolate. He and his wife ate the entire 5 pound batch on a drive to Canada!

Ingredients:

  • 1 16-oz jar of Marshmallow Fluff (It’s local. But any marshmallow creme will do.)
  • 10 oz evaporated milk (mine come in 12 oz cans. Annoying. You can also use low fat if you want. Or coconut milk or nut milk for vegetarian)
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine (I’ve also used earth balance butter sticks. A different but vegetarian option)
  • 5 cups sugar (eeek)
Chocolate is always welcome

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla (I sometimes swap out 1/2 the vanilla for orange flavoring!)
  • 4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
  • 1/2 chopped dried dark cherries
  • 6 Lindt Truffles sliced in half (white chocolate, lindor, dark, mix it up!)
  1. Butter/spray two 9 x 9 inch baking pans.
  2. Combine fluff, milk, butter and sugar in a large saucepan, set over low heat until well blended. (I made this in a hotel suite in a frying pan. Trust me, you want a larger pan!)
  3. Increase heat to medium and bring the mixture to a boil . As you stir, bubbles will pop up… that’s not boiling. Bring to a true boil stirring occasionally. Then boil slowly for 3 – 5 minutes until you reach the soft ball stage. What’s soft ball stage? Have a glass of ice water handy and just allow some of the mixture from the pan to drip into the water. Once it holds together and you can easily form the glob into a soft ball, you are done! Note – You’ll see bits of brown carmelized sugar stirring up from the bottom. That’s ok.
  4. Remove from the heat. Stir in the chip, vanilla (and any other flavor you want), nuts and dark cherries.
  5. Pour into prepared pans.
  6. Give the fudge a few minutes to cool, then press the sliced truffles into the top of the fudge mixture. They’ll start to melt, but let them go! They’ll firm back up as things cool.
  7. Allow the fudge to cool. I place my in the refrigerator as soon as the pans are cool enough to touch.

This recipe makes about 5 pounds of fudge. Enjoy!

PS – This is another recipe I made for our annual family reunion food auction (read my pickled carrots auction favorite here). One little cousin spent all his money on the 5 pound container of fudge. Money he’d saved for quite a while. And unfortunately he ate a good deal of it on the drive home to Maine!