Sea Salt Fudge

This is the most ridiculously bad for you recipe you will EVER eat. I cannot, cannot stress this enough. It tastes so, so good but when you know what’s in it it tastes SO much better because of the terrible, guilty burden of fatty knowledge.

This started life as Nigella’s vanilla fudge, but I wasn’t in the mood for something sweet, so chucked a load of salt in at the end and I have to say that I am proud of myself. The salt cuts through the sweetness and means you can eat enough of this to give yourself a heart attack before it gets too sickly.

Unfortunately my phone deleted all of my photos, including all the ones I took of this, step by step, so you’ll have to just get what you’re given from what I stole off my own Twitter.

You need:

• A throwaway foil baking tray
• An electric whisk
• No distractions
• A 397g of condensed milk
• 250g unsalted butter – that’s a WHOLE PACKET btw
• 800g (!!!!) of white sugar
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 175ml milk
• A tablespoon (yup) of good sea salt
• A bowl of iced water

It does make a lot of fudge. Be warned.

You have to watch this the entire time you’re cooking it, or you could end up with a kitchen covered in fudge and/or fire. So stick the radio on and ignore all distractions.

Put all the ingredients apart from the salt into a very large pan and bring to the boil, stirring constantly.

In about 20 minutes your fudge mix will start slowly turning brown – this part is all done by eye. Once it looks…. fudge coloured, take a spoonful and drop it into the bowl of water. You’ll know it’s done if it solidifies, but still stays squishy. To sound clever I am going to tell you that this is called the soft-ball stage.

Take the fudge off the stove, pour into a bowl and start to whisk it, like the stirring, without stopping. This is what makes it nice and crumbly when it’s set. Once the mix has cooled slightly throw in your salt and keep mixing. It should end up cooling to the consistency, says Nigella, of peanut butter, after about five minutes, but mine took much longer.

PS, while you’re doing this, try not to drop a spoon into your molten bloody fudge:

Put your mix into your baking tray and smooth it down until it’s as flat on top as possible. As you can see, I did this as neatly as I do everything else.

Leave it to cool for a while until you can pick it up without instantly dropping it, swearing and plunging your hands into the freezer and then pop it into the fridge for half an hour. Once it’s completely set and cooled, cut it into chunks. Now eat five bits, hate yourself for it and then sneak two more.

TL;DR: Fudge