I Feel Like Fudge, Man...

I've never been one that's big on making Christmas goodies. I get the urge to make shaped sugar cookies once in a blue Christmas moon, but that's more about the fun of decorating cookies with other people as opposed to actually eating the cookies. That being said, I know that making and
sharing various goodies is a large part of many people's Christmas celebrations, so I thought I'd try to at least touch on it with a few of these Holiday Survival posts.

Today's "Christmas Goodie" is Dark Chocolate Peppermint Fudge. I don't know about you, but chocolate and mint just SCREAMS Winter Holidays to me! All the peppermint barks, cookies dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with candy cane dust, and various other snacks that combine the two flavors just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy... but we can't have them. Even a tiny piece of peppermint bark has more sugar in it than we're supposed to have in an entire week! Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point!

Fudge is a hard one to make healthier since it's generally just sugar with some sugar added for extra flavor. Oh yeah, and sugar. Can't forget the sugar. I plan on trying a few different iterations of this throughout this month to see what comes out being the most bariatric friendly. To be honest, I started with this one because it's the one I already had the ingredients for in house. It's also a fairly good baseline to compare with the others later on.


The one idea I'm most excited about is cream cheese fudge! YUM! Speaking of, has anyone ever had the fudge that's made primarily of American cheese with some chocolate added? I've never had it, but I just can't imagine it'll be all that good. If you've had it, drop a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.





On to the recipe! I literally just made this and have it cooling in the fridge as we speak, so hopefully this post isn't jumping the gun on something that won't work out well...

Dark Chocolate Peppermint Fudge

 

• 32 oz No Sugar Added Dark Chocolate, chopped
• 8 oz Half and Half
• 1/4 cup Kerry Gold Butter (or other salted, grass fed butter) 
• 1 tsp. Peppermint Extract
•  24 Sugar Free Starlight Mints, crushed

1.  Create a large double boiler using a cooking pot and a large glass or metal bowl. Put a couple inches of water into your pot and put it over medium-high heat on your stove.
2. While water is heating, add chopped chocolate, half and half and butter to your bowl. When water is steaming, place bowl over the pot and start stirring. It'll take a few minutes but the chocolate should start melting fairly quickly. Continue mixing as it melts, ensuring that the half and half and butter are thoroughly mixing in.
3. When chocolate is completely melted, turn the heat on your stove off but leave the bowl on top of the pot of water. Add in peppermint extract and whisk to combine. If using anything other than a whisk prior to this step, switch to a whisk. There's something about chocolate that slightly resists adding things like extracts, so a whisk works best to make sure it's well combined.
4. Take bowl off of the pot and set aside.
5. Lightly grease your dish with butter. I suggest using a glass baking pan. The size you use depends on how thick you want your fudge to be. For this recipe, I chose to use a 9x9 inch glass baking dish.
6. Right before you're ready to pour your chocolate into the pan to set, mix in the crushed mints, making sure to hold approximately 2 Tbsp. worth aside to sprinkle on top. Make sure to mix these in quickly as you don't want them dissolving into the chocolate.
7. Pour into your greased baking dish. Gently tap dish against your counter top/table a few times to let any air bubbles come to the top. Sprinkle with remaining crushed mints.
8. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours or until set the whole way through.
9. Cut into pieces and serve!  

A couple outtake pictures just because. I mean, what would a cooking experiment be without making a giant mess?