Old-Fashioned Chocolate Fudge
Chocolate fudge might just be one of my all-time favorite candy recipes. Last year around this time I shared a week of candy, including a deliriously creamy peanut butter fudge, peanut brittle, toffee, and honeycomb (among others), but it’s been a while since I shared this decades-long, family-favorite chocolate fudge recipe. I originally shared it almost 4 years ago but thought it could use a photo facelift, some new tips, and a video. Old-fashioned fudge is a labor of love and a treasure. It’s made with pantry-standard ingredients, this is a fudge recipe without condensed milk (not that I have a problem with easy condensed milk fudge), a fudge without marshmallow fluff. Real old-fashioned chocolate fudge isn’t as creamy on the surface as the varieties and recipes that are more commonly available today. It gives a little bit of resistance to your tooth on that first bite and then just melts away, smooth and creamy on your tongue. It’s not “easy” to make (is any candy?) but I swear you can taste the love and effort that goes into it. My mom makes this chocolate fudge every year for my siblings and me on Valentine’s Day and most of the tips that you see have mostly come from years of her trials and errors.
Ingredients for Chocolate Fudge
Our ingredient list is very basic:
Whole milk. Granulated sugar. You’ll need 3 cups for this recipe. One of the comments I get most often when I share candy recipes is that they use “too much sugar!”. Well, that’s candy for you. It basically is flavored sugar that’s been cooked into another form. Light corn syrup. Not to be confused with high fructose corn syrup, which is not the same thing. I do not recommend trying to make this fudge recipe without the corn syrup. Unsweetened chocolate bar. It should be 100% cacao. I’ve used Baker’s chocolate and Ghirardelli and tend to prefer Ghirardelli as sometimes Baker’s chocolate leaves little specks throughout my fudge (you can see this in one of my original fudge photos that I left below. This seems to be purely an aesthetic thing, though, and the fudge tastes the same regardless of which brand I use). You’ll also only need a small bit, just 2 oz of chocolate flavors this chocolate fudge. Butter. I use salted here. Pure vanilla extract.
Key Tips for Perfect Chocolate Fudge Every Time
Fudge, like most candy recipes, is tricky and can be temperamental. Before you try to make it for the first time I highly recommend watching the video (below the recipe) and reading my tips and tricks. I know, there are a lot of tips here, but these have been collected from my mom over years and years of trial and error as well as my own tribulations with this recipe. Don’t beat yourself up if this fudge doesn’t come out right the first time. It takes practice, and it’s well-worth the effort.
Enjoy!
More Candy Recipes to Try:
Chocolate Truffles Sea Foam (like Divinity, but not quite!) Potato Candy Easy Peppermint Bark
I originally published this recipe 02/04/2016. Post has been updated to include even more tips and more photos. Some of the original pictures can be seen below.
