Again. . . . I need to post some pre-holiday stuff here to play catch up before I forget.
Our holiday cards had a fudge recipe on it. An insanely easy fudge which is begging for customization. The recipe I used is from here and then I just added some mix-ins. I suggested adding cayenne (just a pinch) this year and called it "slightly naughty fudge" and it was suburb—but then later I made a batch that was even better (to me, of course, cooking being subjective and all) and I call it Salted Fudge.
I made a batch using the same recipe as above but used 1 part semi-sweet chocolate chips, 2 parts milk chocolate chips, added a bit of vanilla, a teaspoon of instant espresso powder, and then on top very lightly sprinkled my fancy finishing salt mixed with a tiny bit of cinnamon and sugar. If you try this, make sure and dust it right away, the fudge sets super fast and then the salt and sugar won't stick on top.
Oh good lord almighty. Really. This finishing salt is crazy because it doesn't even taste like salt. Okay, I could go on here, but for the sake of brevity. . . the salt makes the whole chocolate thing very complex and so amazing. It's one of those "oh, what is in my mouth? It's is so good, perhaps it's not even food, but a bit of chewable heaven" moments. I had several friends and family members experience this as well when eating this stuff.
An all time favorite pre-Christmas photo. Now I have four Sugarplum Fairies. Thank you Hillary, they love them so much and so do I. And look, I even let the girls play with them. I have to. I tried to hide them twice and got totally busted.
