2½ lbs. sugar.
½ lb. glucose.
1 quart cream or fresh milk.
1 tablespoonful butter.
1 teaspoonful vanilla.
Put the sugar, glucose, cream (or milk) and the butter in a kettle
large enough to allow for its boiling up, set on the fire and stir
constantly, and when it comes to a good boil put in the thermometer,
see that the bulb is covered all the time, and cook to 236 or 238,
being careful to slide the thermometer around the kettle occasionally,
and stir where it stood or it will stick. Then set off the fire, and
cream (or rub) it with a spoon against the sides of your kettle, until
you see it just commences to grain a little; add the vanilla, and it
is then ready to pour out, and it does not hurt this any to scrape the
kettle when pouring.
Most people pour their fudge into a buttered platter, but the best way
is to take a shallow square pan, or make a square place on your slab
with the iron bars, and lay into it or into the pan, some old wax paper
that has been used several times for dropping purposes, and pour the
candy directly on it, and as soon as your fudge has set you can very
easily lift the paper out with the fudge, and it may be peeled off
without any trouble; in fact you may use any kind of a heavy paper with
a gloss on it, in place of the wax paper, and you will find that this
fudge will not stick to it at all. After you pour the fudge out, it
should be set in fifteen or twenty minutes at the most, and then if you
will take a knife and mark it into squares any size desired, it will
readily break wherever marked, which is easier than cutting it up. If
you use a glossy paper instead of a wax paper upon which to pour it,
it is best not to allow it to stand very long after it sets, before
removing the paper; but in using wax paper you will have no trouble at
all with it sticking. A shallow pan, about nine by fifteen inches, will
hold a batch this size, and make it about the right thickness.
If the fudge gets sticky instead of creamy and is soft, cook it two
degrees higher the next time. You may dilute condensed milk with
one-half water, which may also be used instead of cream, but in using
sweet cream you get a nice rich fudge, and there is not as much danger
of its curdling.