Fantasy Fudge

I have had this fudge many, many times. This is the recipe my mother uses and she makes it every year.

I comes right off the side of the container of marshmallow fluff.

But while I have eaten this many times, I've never had to make it myself.

Until this year.

I no longer live at home (yay!), but I still needed to give some to my lawyers as gifts. The previous year I had just taken some Mom had made.

So I went out and bought a candy thermometer. Because I don't trust/remember Mom's tips for determining when the fudge has reached "soft tack". I don't even remember them. Something involving a glass of water. Or velvety texture. Don't know. I bought the thermometer.

So I followed the directions almost exactly. The differences being, I did  not line the pan with foil. In our family, we take the wrapper from the butter needed for the recipe and and smear the pan with it. There is enough residual butter on the wrapper to make the pan adequately non-stick. DO NOT USE SPRAY! (Although I don't know why, I just assume Mom has made that mistake before and the results were so unpleasant she can't talk about them.)

So I make it according to the recipe, other than how to prep the pan. I wait until the thermometer reads the proper temperature, although it takes longer than the amount of time given as a substitute for a thermometer.

I dumped it in the gorgeous green pan that was a birthday present, and let it set.

I think maybe a day later, when I was cutting it up to package it as gifts, is when I tried it.

And the fudge was great.

Success.

Later attempts were less successful, i.e., I tried with almonds and it tasted fine but looked odd, and then I made it a few weeks ago and didn't let it boil long enough and it had a gritty texture.