Easy-peasy, salty-sweet chocolate fudge with pretzels and chips
5 minutes in the kitchen and you've got fudge for a crowd - magic!
Hello! Hello!
There’s so much to love in Jessie Sheehan’s new cookbook, SNACKABLE BAKES, 100 Easy-Peasy Recipes for Exceptionally Scrumptious Sweets and Treats, starting with the fact that you get exactly what the title promises. Jessie is the Queen of Easy Peasy! Also the First Lady of Fun – she has a knack for taking childhood favorites and making them exactly what you want now that you’re (kind of) grown up.
There are lovely puddings – I have Jessie to thank for introducing me to soft-set lemon “possets” – crisps and crumbles, loaf cakes galore (I want to make the Chocolate Crème Fraîche Banana Bread), scones and muffins, no-churn ice creams (hooray), the simplest pies ever and an assortment of “snacking cakes” that’ll see you through the year. And then there are those kid-treats revisited.
I love her takes on Rice Krispies Treats, Peanut Butter Cups (she turns peanut butter and chocolate into an elegant dinner-party tart), Crispy Crunch Bark (a riff on Nestlé’s Crunch) and fudge. I’d managed to avoid making fudge my entire life, but within an hour of getting Jessie’s book, I had her Salty-Snack Chocolate Fudge with Pretzels and Crushed Potato Chips in the fridge.
SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK
As bakers and cooks, we all have our favorite ingredients, things we turn to all the time. When I was making the snickerdoodle cake from Displaced Housewife’s, The Cake Book, I noticed that she uses sour cream in lots of her recipes. Me? I’m a buttermilk girl – you’ll find that ingredient in many of my recipes. For Jessie, it’s sweetened condensed milk. She even has a little love-letter to it in the book and calls it her “baking BFF”. She uses it in Rice Krispies Treats, no-churn ice cream, cream-cheese cheesecake, frosting for the tres leches cake and the fudge that won me over.
THAT FUDGE
When you get down to it, Jessie’s fudge is nothing more than chocolate chips and her beloved sweetened condensed milk flavored with vanilla and salt. But it was the add-ins that got me: crushed potato chips and pretzels. The broken-up bits of snack-stuff add just the right amount of salt to the naturally sweet fudge. But then, dried fruits and nuts would be good in the fudge, too. So would a little spice. This is definitely a play-aroundable recipe (scroll down for some ideas). Mary Dodd, who tested the recipe after I made it, called it “ridiculously easy” – her neighbors, the beneficiaries of Mary’s work, called it “yum”. Mark it a win.
Photo: Mary Dodd
Gather the ingredients, set aside 5 minutes and then sit back and wait for the fudge to set. It’s a nice way to start the weekend. I’ll see you on the other side of it.
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SALTY-SNACK CHOCOLATE FUDGE WITH PRETZELS AND CRUSHED POTATO CHIPS
Adapted from SNACKABLE BAKES, 100 Easy-Peasy Recipes for Exceptionally Scrumptious Sweets and Treats, by Jessie Sheehan
Click here for PRINTABLE RECIPE
Photo: Mary Dodd
GOOD TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START
The potato chips: Jessie has a thing for Cape Cod potato chips and they were great in the fudge, but you can use any brand you’d like. The easiest way to crush chips is to pour them into a large bowl, get both hands in there and crush away. Bonus: You get to lick your fingers.
The pretzels: Again, you can use whatever you’d like, but I think the fudge would be nice with thin sticks that you cut into short pieces. That’s an after-the-fact thought. I used thin twists and Mary used mini twists (both were good, but you guessed that). The easiest way to crush pretzels is to put them in a sealed plastic bag and run over them with your rolling pin.
The pan: Jessie wisely recommends lining the pan with parchment and letting the paper run up two sides of the pan, so you have handles when it comes time to get the fudge out of the pan. I ran an extra piece of parchment paper along the bottom and opposite sides, so that I had four handles. It wasn’t necessary, but it did make it easier.
The number of pieces: The recipe makes a lot of fudge. Jessie says it makes 36 large pieces and 64 tiny ones, but when I brought my leftover fudge to Joshua and Linling, they sliced the pieces into thin melt-in-your-mouth size slabs – I think they got 100 pieces. I think they finished them all.
Makes 36 large pieces or 64 tiny ones (see above)
INGREDIENTS
2 2/3 cups (454 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
One 14-ounce can (397 grams) sweetened condensed milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups (160 grams) crushed potato chips, such as Cape Cod, about 4 cups whole chips (see above)
1 3/4 cups (131 grams) crushed pretzels, about 2 2/3 cups whole pretzels (see above)
Flaky sea salt for sprinkling
Turbinado (or raw) sugar for sprinkling
Photo: Mary Dodd
DIRECTIONS
Grease an 8-inch square cake pan with cooking spray or softened butter. Line with a long sheet of parchment paper that extends up and over two opposite sides of the pan. (See above for notes on pan size and handles.)
Microwave the chocolate and sweetened condensed milk on HIGH in a large, microwave-safe bowl in two 45-second bursts, stirring after each with a flexible spatula, until the chocolate melts. (Or do this in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water - don't let the bottom of the bowl touch the water.)
Stir in the vanilla and kosher salt, and the potato chips and pretzels. Scrape the fudge into the prepared pan. Drape with a sheet of parchment paper and flatten with your hands.
Photo: Mary Dodd
Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and turbinado (or raw) sugar. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour, and slice with a chef’s knife.
Note from me: The chilled fudge cuts easily. Note from Michael (the man who loves tools and gadgets): It's more fun to cut it with a knife and my trusty rubber mallet.
STORING: Keep the fudge in an airtight container on the counter for up to 1 week. (You might be tempted to chill it, but don't.)
PLAYING AROUND: It's easy to imagine this simple fudge with plump dried fruit and some nuts (toasted or not). Coconut and chocolate are Mounds-ian heaven. You could add a little booze - bourbon would be nice. Or a little spice - I like the idea of a mild chile or some coarsely ground black pepper; cinnamon's an easy add-in; and ginger, maybe even some pieces of moist, pliable crystallized ginger, could be surprising. You've also got play-around real estate on top of the fudge - before it firms, you could sprinkle it with, well, sprinkles, or bits of candy or dried or candied fruit. Fudge is meant for fun - have some!
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Feature image photo by Nico Schinco for SNACKABLE BAKES, courtesy of Jessie Sheehan