Chocolate, Fudge, and Mulching

I had a weekend of cooking and gardening, as Liz was working, and I had to entertain myself. There was a big pile of branches waiting to be chipped from last autumn. A lot of them were from the big gorse that was blocking the sitting room window until about September, and they were making the corner of the garden rather untidy. Thus, I borrowed the chipper from Liz's parents, and set to. Chipping always takes a long time, and I'm always struck by how a huge heap of branches turns into a small pile of mulch. Nonetheless, I now have several bin bags of chipped stuff, which will make its way onto a fruit bed sometime. There's still a bit more chipping to do, but that can be next weekend's entertainment, as I was subsequently distracted by making fudge.

This is what happens when I'm unsupervised. I made a batch of chocolate almond fudge (basic fudge recipe, but with chocolate and toasted almonds stirred in), a tray of fridge cake, and two sorts of Easter egg (blackberry brandy, and caramel filled).

I have good memories of making fudge and toffee with my father, when I was little, especially toffee apples; fudge is a favourite of his. I have a soft spot for almonds, so the chocolate/almond fudge is a treat. I prefer dark chocolate, so I use plain in the fudge, so it's not as sweet. Toasting the almonds gives them a better flavour, I find. The fridge cake, I've been having indecent daydreams of for the past couple of weeks, so I'm pleased to have finally made it. I've only had one slice (admirable restraint, I have to say), with a coffee, and am very happy. It's a different recipe to what I've made before, with condensed milk, and it's turned out very well.

Filled Easter eggs were also an experiment. We've got a set of moulds (a silly-priced 10p for four sheets of 18 small halves, and 2 single big halves, in the supermarket after Easter a few years ago), and we've made solid small eggs and a couple of hollow big eggs. However, I fancied trying my hand at filled eggs, so I made hollow small eggs, and then whipped up some caramel (70g sweetened condensed milk, 55g butter, 55g light brown sugar, heated a bit shy of 'fudge' (116ºC)), and a truffle (dark chocolate, splash of the same milk, butter, and blackberry brandy). I filled the hollow eggs, and sealed them. I'll take them out of their moulds and join the halves when I can...and hope that they've worked!

An entirely unintended consequence is that I have a mug full of 'spare' caramel. Oops.