Crazy Englishwoman Cooks!

In case you think that everything I make turns out as planned, I am happy to share something that, while delicious, was definitely not what I expected.

I am currently home in England, visiting family, and one of the things I always do when I’m home is cook with my niece, Nikita.

After much consideration and browsing through my recipes on my laptop, Nikita decided she wanted to make Vampire Blood Fudge. We both had visions of rich chocolate fudge that would ooze cherry goo when bitten into. Think again….

First, we buttered an 8-inch square pan. That’s what the recipe told us to do but, as you can see, we couldn’t find one in my mum’s cupboards so we settled on a round pan.

We then mixed 1 ½ cups granulated sugar, 1 tsp salt, 2 tbs margarine and ½ cup evaporated milk in a saucepan. We brought the mix to a boil over medium heat. Nikita then stirred continuously for exactly 5 minutes, heeding the recipe’s warning that if she stopped stirring, the mixture would rise in the pan and burn.



So far, so good…

…which of course means that the next step may be where things started to go awry.

“Prepare 1 small box raspberry flavored gelatin according to package directions, using only 1 cup water.”

Now to me this means a box of raspberry flavored jelly (Jello to those in the US). I later wondered if a box of US Jello was smaller than the cubes sold in Tescos, and if that was why things turned out…a little different. However, my mother )who is probably reading this) insists that we should have used flavored gelatin, NOT jelly.

Back to the recipe….

We poured the liquid gelatin/jelly and 2 tbs cherry jam (jelly to those in the US. Confused yet?) to the fudge mixture and boiled for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

With Nikita’s arms tiring from so much rabid stirring, we took the pan off the heat, and added 1 cup chocolate chips. (The recipe called for 2 cups but bags of choc chips in England are tiny, so 1 cup it was). I took over stirring duties until the choc chips were dissolved, and then added 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract.

”Pour fudge into the prepared pan. Refrigerate overnight.”

Next day…

…We were surprised to see that it actually had set. (We’d had our doubts). We turned it out onto a plate but this was definitely not fudge. Instead, we had a sort of two layered, jelly dessert – a layer of jelly and a layer with a more fudge-like consistency. Definitely not something you could eat with your fingers but very tasty as a dessert topped with ice cream. Nikita and I both agreed it would be excellent as a type of mousse, on a cheesecake base and topped with whipped cream.

As for the fudge, perhaps I shall try again when Stateside. 

Pics coming soon - once I get to a better connection.