Black Gold Fudge | edible tapestry

Tags

black gold, cocoa, fudge, Hershey's Special Dark, hobby farming, pure vanilla, The Beverly Hillbillies

I felt like titling this post with one of my favorite lines from Monty Python, “And now for something completely different…” Over our patio fire last weekend, we made s’mores which I really don’t like, though I loved having mini Hershey bars in the house on a three day weekend. But come Thursday night we all seemed to be suffering withdrawal from our chocoholicism. I have regretted passing this disease on to my children and have done my best not to encourage the addiction. It doesn’t help that I chose a man to father these children who suffers from a mild form of this sometimes debilitating crutch. As it is, we need to feed the cravings on occasion to prevent utter meltdown and possible hospitalization.

I feel about Thursdays how most feel about Monday mornings. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s not that I don’t feel the weekend coming and can almost see it, I think it has to do with a bit of perfectionism on my part. I honestly can’t relax if there is anything that needs to be done. Can’t sit down in the living room for a break if someone has neglected to put their shoes away and they sit by the door or there is a pile of Wii games on the mantel or the area rug looks like it needs to be vacuumed an hour after it has been or I see weeds in my garden beds (of which there are many at the moment) through the window that need to be attended to.

With a family of four, three of whom are home during the days, there is always something to keep me from being able to feel like I’m “finished” and can stop for the day. Thursdays are the worst because I think underneath all I am trying to accomplish I feel this imaginary five o’clock Friday night deadline where everything I think I need to do for the week must be done or the weekend won’t happen. I’m so much better about this than I was even a few years ago. I really don’t like the phrase “let it go” and how freely people like to throw it around because I always feel like if I let things go I am giving myself permission to be lazy. There came a time, however, when I had to look around me and admit that there were two adults and two children who are almost adult size living in a cottage only slightly bigger than the largest apartment we have ever occupied and that it just wasn’t going to be possible for it to look like the cover of a magazine all through the day every day. I realize that with homeschooling and the decision I have made to blog and attempt to be a writer in addition to the gardening and animal care that require my attention on our “hobby” farm that there just isn’t going to be any way to keep it all under control all the time which is what I tend to try to do. So I let go, everyone is happier, we goof off together more often, we work together now that the kids are older to maintain order and get everything done, but the effects of “letting go” has to show somewhere on occasion. I can’ t change who I am and if I’m going to have a moment when the facade shatters, however visibly to others that moment may be, it’s going to happen on a Thursday night. Never fails. Sometimes I don’t even make it past Thursday afternoon before I’m heading for a patch of sunshine in the backyard for an attitude readjustment period or shutting myself in the computer room with my favorite music pumping into my ears while I multitask on other things.

Yesterday was Thursday. By 8 o’clock I decided to ditch everything, take my chances that I wouldn’t “save the world” by dinner time on Friday night, told my boys to pick a movie for us to watch and that we were making fudge.

We never did end up watching a movie, but we stayed up until 2 a.m. giggling, talking, and sharing some of our favorite music and videos on the computer together. And there was fudge. Boy was there fudge! We threw this batch together with some dark Hershey’s cocoa that I had grabbed on impulse at the store months ago in place of the regular cocoa and we were all so glad I had documented the ingredients for the blog because we plan never to use another fudge recipe. Okay, we probably will, but we could think of no other name for it than “Black Gold Fudge” it was so dark and rich, the color of “Texas Tea”, the pure black “bubblin’ crude” that Jed Clampett found while “a’shootin’ at some food”.

We made half of this amount so I am doubling it for the blog. I’m glad we only made half a pan because it was so rich that I think I will use this recipe for the chocolate truffles I make every Christmas. One thing I learned from making this, other than how almost magical it is to use Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa for ordinary things, is that it’s really, really hard to get a good picture of fudge. Oh well. I did my best and though I’m not happy with the results I’m just going to…let it go.

Ingredients:

1 c. butter

1 cup of Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa

6 T cream

4 c. confectioner’s sugar

Pinch of salt

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Method:

Melt the butter in a saucepan.