Fudge Kitchen, A New Kind Of Fudge

I am by no means a fudge expert, I have tasted hundreds of different varieties of fudge in my life, but for the most part they all seem pretty similar.  From the little knowledge I have on the subject, fudge is pretty much butter, sugar, some milk, and flavorings melted together into a lump.  I'm not putting down fudge makers by any stretch.  It takes a great deal of skill to blend these simple ingredients perfectly, and a great deal of knowledge to know how to work with these ingredients to get this wonderful treat.  The thing is, for years now I've never really heard about people making any kind of deviation from this recipe.

That was until my trip to York, there I found a place that's changed the ingredients a little in order to make a different kind of fudge.  The main difference the Fudge Kitchen has in their recipe is the use of whipped cream.  They also seem to use a little more sugar than other fudge places I've seen.  According to them it creates a slightly healthier fudge, but frankly I can't really see that.  While there may be a little less fat in the whipped cream, the fudge is still loaded with sugar.  I can tell you however that their recipe doesn't take away any of the flavour or texture at all.

I was lucky enough to be visiting the Fudge Kitchen in York just as they where starting off a demonstration on how they mixed their fudge.  It seemed to need a bit more work then regular fudge, and after setting for a while it had to be folded and kneaded into a tasty log.  The great thing about this demonstration was the free sample you got after watching, warm fudge is about as good as it gets.

While I might argue that their fudge isn't healthier than regular fudge, I will say that it is unique.  Best of all they've capitalized on their unique fudge and created something that probably wouldn't work with regular fudge.  They've created something called drinking fudge.  Making a few changes to their fudge recipe, they are able to make a chocolate like sauce that you can add to hot milk.  They call it drinking fudge, and what you get is a warm cup of fudge, instead of just plain old hot chocolate.

It's really great to see a company not simply changing a recipe for the sake of changing it, but also innovating something new out of this special recipe.  Fudge is a classic treat that I love, but I didn't feel for one second that the Fudge Kitchen was ruining it.  Instead I felt like the Fudge Kitchen was branching out into something new.  While I don't want to see every fudge maker go this direction exactly, it would be nice to see them explore something other than adding different nuts or flavours to the classic recipe.

CC