Coffee and Walnut Fudge

The other day at work, I did something really stupid.

So stupid I considered shutting down my email for the entire rest of the day just so I didn't have to face the inevitable consequences of my actions.

So mortifying that when I told my co-workers about it, their mouths dropped and I could see the relief on their faces that it hadn't happened to them.

And because I know how annoying it is for someone to talk around something without giving you any details, let me give you the cliff's notes: I basically sent an email to someone who never should have seen it. It was from someone I work for (a member of our company) and contained a disparaging remark he had made about the high maintenance of one of our customers.

I sent it to the customer.

And the only reason I learned of this mistake is that the customer replied. To all (i.e. me and the member).

At first, I didn't know what to do. I deleted the email as fast as I could and tried not to throw up. I sat at my desk ignoring the phone ringing, trying to figure out what to do next. Should I apologize and if so, to whom? The customer? Our member?

Should I tell my supervisor? Should I tell my co-workers?

Should I flee the building?

Eventually I got myself together enough to apologize to our member and hope he never ever mentioned it again. But I was still in a complete funk that I had made such a stupid, careless mistake.

And then I got really, really paranoid.

Oh my gosh, the VP's coming over here. He's totaling going to yell at me. Oh no, oh no, oh noooo. Oh my God, I'm getting fired. Am I fired? I am SO TOTALLY fired.

Oh. He just needed the copier.

*Ping* Email received. Oh no, oh no, it's the member who's totally pissed and he's going to ream me out. I can't look, I can't look! I should just close my email for the rest of the day, stop answering the phone, crawl under my desk, and start eating my hair.

Here comes the president of the company. Don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact! Look busy! Type, type type!!!

I finally calmed down enough to climb down off my cliff of mortification and despair, and once most everyone had gone for the day, I even admitted my faux pas to some of my co-workers so we could laugh about how totally heinous it was. Because with something that bad, there's just nothing you can do about it, but laugh. Or cry. And I DON'T cry at work. I wait until I'm in my car.

The next morning, when I opened my email, I saw the member had replied to my apology. I checked all my other emails first, so that at least I would have gotten through them before the self-loathing set in. Finally, only one remained and I clicked on it with a sense of dread in my gut.

Two words.

"No problem."

I sighed a small sigh of relief and tried to relax.

Until the paranoia returned.

VP looking very serious and telling all of my co-workers: "Guys, we're going to have a quick meeting in the conference room that I need everyone to attend. Yes, right now."

Holy shit. He's going to tell everyone what I did. Did he just give me A Look? He did. He totally did. OMG. He's going to make an example of me and I'm going to be totally humiliated. I may just die of shame. Maybe I should just leave now. Where's the nearest exit?!

Turns out the meeting was about something completely unrelated. Silly me.

So after that stressful experience, I was hankering to make something relatively easy that I could bring with me on my trip to my sister's graduation from law school (yay Alex!!). You can never go wrong with chocolate in my family, and I thought fudge would be something everyone would enjoy. Plus, I think my family's going to kill me if I don't start sending them baked goods in the mail. Must research how to FedEx a whole cheesecake.


Ingredients:

regular sugar (not superfine), corn syrup, heavy cream, milk chocolate, walnuts, butter, coffee extract (which I couldn't find so I used instant coffee)

I started by chopping the nuts, weighing the butter and chocolate, and dissolving the instant coffee so I wouldn't have to multitask while watching my candy thermometer like a hawk.

 I used about a tablespoon of instant coffee and added about 2 1/2 tablespoons of hot water because I wanted a concentrated coffee flavor. Typically, you would add I think 1/4 cup of hot water to that amount of instant coffee.

I put the sugar, cream, and corn syrup into my large pot and stirred to combine. 

I put this over a medium heat and continued to stir until I felt like the sugar had mostly dissolved. It was still a little grainy I think, but had gotten a lot thinner (which was weird since I'm used to mixtures thickening as they cook). This took about 5 minutes. I raised the heat and brought the mixture to a boil, stirring all the while. Once it came to a boil, I put my sugar thermometer* in, lowered the temperature slightly, and stopped stirring. 

*I really like the thermometer I bought, but the only means of clipping it to the side of a pan is at the very top, and I have yet to use a pot tall enough to accommodate it. Instead I have to just balance it in the pot and hope it doesn't fall over, splashing me with searing hot sugar. Why isn't there a clip in the middle somewhere? And who are all these people with their damn tall pots? Like when I have to get even my shirts tailored to fit my 5'2'' frame, I am yet again faced with my shortcomings.

I don't know if you can tell by the pictures, but as the mixture boiled, it got higher and higher in the pot. I knew this would happen which is why I used a large pot, but I was definitely getting a little nervous as it continued to climb. The recipe says to let this boil until it reaches 255 degrees Fahrenheit, but then there is a parenthesis that mentions that it may only be necessary to bring it to 230 degrees in the U.S. since cream here is thicker than in the UK. I crouched by the stove and watched the thermometer like a hawk as the mercury crept up to 230, also looking nervously at the boiling cream creeping dangerously close to boiling over.

As soon as the temperature hit 230, I removed the pot from the stove and added the chocolate, walnuts, butter, and coffee, stirring to combine. (If I had wanted the fudge to be grainy, as some people prefer, I would have stirred the mixture for 2-3 minutes as soon as it came up to temperature and before adding the rest of the ingredients. But I didn't do that. I'm not enough of a fudge connoisseur to know how I like mine.)

I made sure to stir slowly since there's a note in the recipe to be careful as the mixture doesn't look as hot as it is. 

230 degrees? Searing hot boiling cream that just keeps getting bigger and bubblier? Gee, thanks for the warning. If not for the note to keep the spoon away from my face, I may have just slathered it on like a face mask. Mmm, delish. 

Once the chocolate and butter had melted, I poured it into a baking dish I had buttered and lined with parchment paper. There's no specification as to what size baking dish to use (SO HELPFUL), so I guessed and chose a 9 by 9. Thankfully, the mixture juuust fit.

This smelled really yummy and the last thing to do was just to let it sit overnight. Easy!

The next morning as I was packing to leave for my sister's graduation, I surveyed the fudge, getting ready to prepare it for transport. I thought about lifting the whole block out of the pan to cut it, but wasn't sure I could. I started by cutting it into squares in the pan, like you would brownies.

This is where the trouble started. The fudge was still completely soft and not at all set like it should have been. I managed to lift the block out of the pan, just to see if perhaps it was firm enough to separate.

It was not.

This was the very first thing I've made that was truly inedible (although Dan might have proved me wrong if I had given him a chance. He made a small cry when I threw it in the trash. Clearly he's not as devoted as my stepfather who once ate cookies out of the trash that I had burned to prove they weren't ruined. They were, and he was just being nice). Maybe I used the wrong pan so the fudge was too thick to set up correctly. Maybe the sugar wasn't completely dissolved, but I don't think that would have made such a difference. Or maybe I should have let the cream mixture boil to a hotter temperature. While it did reach 230 degrees, it also should have turned light brown when it was truly ready to be removed from the heat, which it didn't. A detail I failed to notice while I was cooking. You'd think an English major would read a little more carefully.

And just because I'm a glutton for punishment, a closeup! Of my failure! To make something so simple, thousands if not millions of people make it every year!

I will not be sharing this with any of my fellow classmates at the FCI. I think they'll make me return my chef's coat. 

So, in summary, things I don't do well: Email. Make fudge.  Shameful.

Next Indulgence: Sachertorte

French Chocolate Bark

*Ring, ring* 
Me: Hello? 
Ellyn: Yes, hi. I'm planning a dinner party in December and would like to enlist your culinary services. 
Me: Ok, let me check my schedule. Yes, I believe I am available. How many people will we be serving? 
Ellyn: Umm, probably 8. 
Me: Ok great, I'll start planning the menu. 
Ellyn: Thanks honey. And don't forget to take your vitamins.
Me: Ugghhh, Mom... 

Ok, so I may be paraphrasing slightly, but that's basically how it went. Many emails later we finally had a menu planned, and the guest list had steadily grown from "probably 8" to "oh we're going to squeeze just a few more in," and "guess who else is coming?!" until I was cooking for a hefty party of 12.

Of course, this was a perfect opportunity to make something for the blog, but I didn't want to pick something that was too risky that would leave me open to falling flat on my face in front of a bunch of my mother's colleagues and friends. Of course, the only thing I really wanted to make wasn't something in Ina's cookbook. I've been jonesing to make Cinnamon Ice Cream  ever since I bought my mom an ice cream maker 2 years ago. It just seems like such a yummy fall treat that would be sweet, spicy, and casual, but very festive. And since ice cream is something that I feel pretty comfortable and confident making, I thought, now's my chance! I looked through Back to Basics for something I could pair with the ice cream, and decided the French Chocolate Bark was perfect. It was interesting, fancy enough for a party, but also rustic and fun. People could break it up like a topping for their ice cream, or eat it on the side as an accoutrement. 

The night before the dinner party, once the ice cream was hardening in the freezer, I gathered my ingredients together for the bark and prepared to defend them from my family's curious fingers and hungry mouths.

bittersweet chocolate, semisweet chocolate, crystallized ginger, cashews, dried cherries, dried apricots, golden raisins

I preheated the oven and spread the cashews in one layer on a sheet pan. These went into the oven to roast for about 8 minutes. Once they were roasted, I set them aside to cool. I couldn't believe the difference in color when I took these out of the oven. 

the roasted one is on the right 

They were golden brown, a bit shiny from the natural oil, and were actually more tender than their raw, crunchy counterparts.

Using a pencil, I drew a 9x10 inch rectangle on a sheet of parchment paper, turned it over so the pencil was on the underside, and laid it on another sheet pan.

With both of these pans aside, I started on the chocolate. Ina has an interesting method for tempering chocolate, which is usually a pretty tedious and exact process involving melting the chocolate to an exact temperature and then spreading it out on a smooth surface before spreading it back and forth to cool it.

Well, Ina says, to hell with that, and throws it in the microwave.

So, putting my mother to work, we finely chopped both the bittersweet and semisweet chocolate. I put the semisweet chocolate and about half of the bittersweet chocolate in a glass measuring cup and microwaved it for about 20 seconds. Paranoid Ina of course suggests using a stopwatch because apparently you can't trust your microwave timer...just like you can't trust the temperature gauge on your oven (although that one, I actually agree with).

I gave our microwave the benefit of the doubt. After 20 seconds, I took out the chocolate and stirred with a rubber spatula. I put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds, then stirred, and continued to stir until the chocolate was just melted. At that point, I added the rest of the bittersweet chocolate

and continued to stir until the chocolate was smooth. This seemed to take forreeeever and I was so sure that throughout this whole process, I would either burn the chocolate or it would never melt. I continued to stir and although there were still a few very small pieces of chocolate left, it had cooled to room temperature so I was pretty sure that was as smooth as I was going to get it. At this point, I stirred a little more quickly to give it a glossier finish. 

 

I poured the chocolate onto the parchment paper and spread it lightly into the drawn rectangle. I went slowly as I was convinced as soon as the chocolate hit the parchment it would somehow become uncontrollable and end up all over the kitchen floor, but it was surprisingly easy to work with and I was able to make a pretty acceptable rectangle, if I do say so myself. 

I know it looks like a square, but it was technically a rectangle

Once the chocolate was evenly spread, I started with the toppings, which Ina provides strict instructions about regarding the order in which they are added. The first layer was crystallized ginger.

 

Next were the cooled whole cashews

 

then the cherries

 

and finally the apricots and raisins. 

 

 

With Alex as my sous chef, we tried to make sure each topping adhered to at least some of the chocolate so half the toppings didn't fall off as soon as we broke the bark or picked it up to eat it, and I think we did a pretty good job.

I let this harden overnight until it was very firm, which worked perfectly. (Yay! Love when that happens!) The edges of the chocolate developed some odd whitish marbling though, which may have been from the chocolate drying out slightly overnight. It wasn't something I was too concerned about aesthetically, and I knew it wouldn't affect the taste.

Before serving, I cut the bark into about 24 rough triangles. My mom served the ice cream in small china bowls and some cappuchino cups, and put a piece of the bark on the saucer of each bowl or cup. The leftover bark was put on a platter in the middle of the table so people could help themselves to more.

Ok, so I know you're expecting to see a picture of the finished plating right about now, but I didn't take one. I know, I know, bad blogger. But in true catering fashion, my sister and I weren't invited to dinner so instead we were down the street, sipping glasses of wine at a local Italian restaurant. I also figured my mom had enough to worry about with 12 people in the dining room, and since she has been known to take pictures with the camera upside down, I didn't want to overwhelm her.

May I just say, that guests thought the ice cream was so good, they couldn't believe it was homemade. *Applause, applause* Thank you, thank you, you're too kind really!

Thankfully, there was a little bark leftover so the chef (aka moi) could try some. I liked the chocolate (duh), but thought the ginger was a little overpowering. I liked how the whole cashews looked but they were a little difficult to eat daintily. There were a lot of competing flavors, but as someone who likes their chocolate pure and unadulterated, I may be a little biased. There's a note in the recipe that Ina likes to use this for s'mores during the winter, which I do think would AH-mazing. The melted chocolate with the added sweetness of the marshmallow...as Ina would say, who wouldn't like that?

Oh, and if you're curious abut the rest of the menu:
We started with the Roasted Shrimp Cocktail and Baked Brie wrapped in puff pastry that we made for Thanksgiving since they were so easy to make and both got rave reviews. The main course was Ina's Fillet of Beef (not from Back to Basics), which I served with Green Beans with Caramelized Onions, Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes, and Popovers.

Make this when: you want to take Ina's advice and use these to make grown-up s'mores. They were OK on their own, but I think they'd be heavenly topped with a gooey, melted marshmallow and stuck between two gourmet cookies.

Next Course: Baked Chocolate Pudding