The F word. (Fudge).

I have been threatening to bake for a while now and rather than make my beloved fruit cake (dog's danglies, trust me), I thought I would have a change and make fudge. This is from Jamie Oliver's "Monster Bake Sale" (the one he did for comic relief a couple of years ago). It involves no real cooking, only stuff on the hob which is left to cool and involves very few ingredients. What could go wrong?

This is what I was aiming for:

Tasty!

First problem: I need a 20cm square cake tin. I don't have a 20cm square cake tin. I have a couple of these though and they're cake tins, so that's ok?

Next, heating everything on the hob.

It asked for a heavy bottomed saucepan. I don't know what that meant,
I only own 2 saucepans and this was the biggest.

It smells beautiful and whilst it was cooking I kept taking spoonfuls, just to sample the taste. It was divine! Creamy caramel, nom.

Then I bring it slowly up to the boil and stir.

At this point it got too hot to sample. Sad face.

I remember from my extensive watching of Ace of Cakes episodes that boiling sugar can be quite dangerous. I therefore decide to stop reading my book and stir for England. Stir!

After 25 mins of stirring, I have arm ache. When I drop a bit of the mixture into a bowl of cold water it sets into a little ball of fudge. It also appears to have gone lighter in colour which means, yay, it's done. I then pour it into the cake tins to set.

Ignore the spillage on the worktop!

I then decide to turn a blind eye to the debris in the kitchen.

I go out for the day and return later that night for my lovely fudge. I score around the edge, tip the tin over and wait...nothing happens. The damn thing is stuck. Ok, next, select weapon of choice: pink spatula.

Ummmm....

Shall we just revisit the photo from the cook book?

I don't know what went wrong. The second tin I decide to put in the fridge to set.

Twenty four hours later, I take it out the fridge, ready for my fudge, sooo exciting and then:

Yes I did eat all of that missing bit. 

Yup, it hasn't set still. There's a hard bit in the centre which looks like fudge. Further exploratory excavations with a spoon and my mouth discover that this is sugar. Somehow my fudge has retreated to it's original state of sugar. I can't understand how it went so wrong!


Summary:

Cost: Cheap (under £5 for ingredients)
Time spent: Around 2 hours plus a lot longer for setting
Success rate: 0/10
Disappointment rate: 10/10

I should have just made the fruit cake.