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Fudge
is a type of confection, usually extremely rich and often flavored. It is
made by boiling sugar
in milk to the
soft-ball stage, and then beating the mixture while it cools so that it
acquires a smooth, creamy consistency.
American folklore has it that fudge was
invented in the United States more than 100 years ago. The exact origin is
disputed, but most stories claim that the first batch of fudge resulted
from a bungled batch of caramels made on February 14, 1886—hence the
name "fudge."
One of the first documentations of fudge
is found in a letter written by Emelyn Battersby Hartridge, a student at
Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She wrote that her schoolmate's
cousin made fudge in Baltimore, Maryland in 1886 and sold it for 40 cents
a pound. Miss
Hartridge got hold of the fudge recipe, and in 1888, made 30 pounds of
this delicious fudge for the Vassar Senior Auction. Word spread of this
great confection to other women's colleges. (Wellesley and Smith have
their own versions of this fudge recipe.)
Some recipes call for making fudge using
marshmallows. It is using the structure of the marshmallow for support
instead of relying on the sucrose crystals.
Fudge in the U.S. is nearly synonymous
with chocolate.
In fact, the word fudge is used on packaging of cakes
and brownies with
"extra" chocolate flavoring or with fluid chocolate in the
mixture. Other non-chocolate flavors of fudge are sold in the U.S.,
especially peanut
butter, but these are designated by their flavor while the plain word,
fudge, is understood to refer to chocolate flavored fudge.
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Fudge
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