Don't Fudge With Me, Baby

By Caroline Clough in Food on Oct 6, 2006 2:20PM

For a while now, Chicagoist has planned on doing an exposé on peanut butter. This piece would have covered things you've always wondered about peanut butter ... like whether it really killed its husband, Jelly, while visiting Niagara Falls. Or how, exactly, it lost all that weight (we'll tell you one thing, peanut butter is perhaps a little too reliant on the knife ... if you know what we mean). This article would also share a few choice peanut butter recipes and comfort food tips. In a way, we're writing that post as we speak ... except we're going to focus on just one recipe (chocolate peanut butter fudge) and leave the gossip for others.

This is a simple recipe, and there are a million ways to make it more interesting or complex. Literally, one million; we counted. But it's pretty satisfying in its simple form as well.

What You Need
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup peanut butter (we used a mix of Smucker's Natural and Dominick's Organic Creamy)
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
Wax paper
Baking dish
Spatula

What You Do

1. Put the peanut butter, butter and 3/4 of the can of condensed milk into a small sauce pan, and cook over a low flame. Stir constantly.

2. When the milk and butter have fully mixed in with the peanut butter, turn off the heat, and spread the peanut butter in a wax paper-lined baking dish. Use a spatula to smooth the peanut butter edges. Try to keep the thickness consistent.

3. In the same sauce pan (or different if you prefer), put the chocolate chips and remaining condensed milk in, and heat over a low flame. Stir constantly.

4. When you can no longer see actual chip shapes, and instead see a delicious pool of chocolate, turn off the heat.

5. Carefully spread the chocolate over the peanut butter until all is gone.

6. Refrigerate for 2 hours, and serve.

Possible Experimentations
Marshmallows.
Coconut flakes.
A dash of cinnamon in the chocolate.
A dash of honey in the peanut butter.
Whole peanuts.
Mixing the peanut butter with butterscotch.
Using white chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet chips.