Eats - Mackinac Fudge

Hello! You know what they say about all work and no play, so when I created my job jar system for this year, I made sure to include fun activities as well as chores. 

Early this morning, I drew the job jar tag that read "make candy". Definitely fun! 

Went through my recipes and eventually settled on one called Mackinac Fudge. It's named in honor of one of Michigan's most famous tourist destinations, Mackinac Island. Knowing that the island is known for its fudge (and rightfully so; I've had it), I thought this would be worth a  try. 

The recipe is basically a variation of those Fantasy Fudge-type recipes, the kind that use a marshmallow product and chocolate chips. This particular recipe calls for large marshmallows and two ounces of unsweetened chocolate along with milk chocolate chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips. That addition of unsweetened chocolate intrigued me, as I don't think I'd ever seen that ingredient used in this type of fudge before. Usually chocolate chips (or the other flavored baking chips) and other forms of sweetened chocolate are indicated.

I followed the recipe to the letter with one big exception: it calls for one full cup of butter (two sticks), but I decided to try it using half that amount. A number of years ago, I had made a similar, even richer, fudge recipe. It also had a cup of butter in it, and I used that amount. But I thought the finished product was, well, too buttery. So I decided to use less butter this time and see how the fudge turned out. 

I'd say it turned out well! That's about three pounds of fudge right there! Shortly after this picture was taken, I gave some of it to our neighbors, and will mail some to an out-of-town relative too. This fudge turned out rather firm (perhaps because of using less butter?), so I think it'll mail pretty well. 

As for the taste? I can't say if it actually tastes much like Mackinac Island fudge, since I always buy the maple-nut fudge when I'm there. My batch has a somewhat mild chocolate taste, but I liked the added depth of flavor that the unsweetened chocolate gave. And as for the missing butter, this fudge is plenty rich without it! But next time I might go for a compromise and try 1 1/2 sticks.

This was easy to prepare and very good. I don't make fudge very often, but this recipe was worth trying. If you'd like to try it yourself, here's the RECIPE.