Gerald's Chocolate Fudge Recipe

The Story Behind Gerald's Chocolate Fudge Recipe

"This chocolate fudge recipe is dedicated to my father, Gerald.

He grew up during the depression on a farm in upstate Vermont.  His family raised dairy cows and gathered sap from their maple sugar orchard.  They used the milk as a staple and sold the milk and separated cream for profit.  The maple sap was boiled down in large kettles until it became syrup.  The family also boiled down some of the syrup to make maple sugar for their own needs.

From the time I was in kindergarten until high school, Dad worked the swing shift (nights) as a vertical mill operator.  The plant where he worked produced hydraulic cylinders.  He loved to hunt and fish, and while pursuing his hobbies, he would often fill his pocket with a few pieces of his homemade fudge.

As a young boy, I loved to go anywhere with my Dad.  Since he was always working or sleeping when I was awake, I took every opportunity to spend time with him.

One rainy Saturday we drove out to what is known as the Tillamook Burn in the northern Coast Range in Oregon, USA.  The Tillamook Burn area is a result of several large fires that burned between 1933 and 1951 destroying an area of 350,000 acres.  The area was covered with huge stumps that might at one time have been old growth trees rivaling the Redwoods along California's northern coast. This area, located between Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Ocean beaches, is largely overgrown today.

Our trek there was a preliminary trip to determine where deer were congregating prior to hunting season.

The night before our trip, Dad made a batch of his chocolate fudge recipe with walnuts and raisins.  I wasn’t fond of raisins, so I took my own snacks.  The next morning we set off before dawn in his old 1952 red Chevrolet pickup truck.

We spent the day traipsing through the rain and fog, and tramping up and down brush clogged ravines.  We would return to the truck to dry out, now and then, before moving on to explore another spot.

Late in the afternoon, Dad had one more stop he wanted to make.  I sat in the truck and watched him disappear down a hill.  The area was still covered by fog making me feel safely enclosed.  The day had been quiet; we hadn’t seen a single other person.

I sat in the truck for some time obeying my orders to remain inside.  I soon started to become hungry and eyed Dad’s bag of chocolate fudge he had left behind.  It was safely left behind knowing that I did not like raisins.

Soon Dad returned, rising up the hillside from out of the fog.  Wet, again, he slid into the driver's seat. Then he reached for the bag of fudge, only to find it filled with raisins.

He said not a word, but slowly backed the truck onto the road.

I was dead where I sat with no one else to blame.

With a handful of raisins, he looked over at me and laughed.  “Thanks for leaving me something,” he said.

Dad never measured the ingredients when making his chocolate fudge recipe.

When trying to recreate his chocolate fudge as I remember, I had to guess and estimate until I had a chocolate fudge recipe that could be followed by the rest of us.

A large saucepan will work, but a large pan with deep sides, like a Dutch oven works best.

Fudge is sensitive to temperature differences as little as 2 degrees, so I highly recommend using a candy thermometer.

Alternatively, you can drop a small amount of hot fudge into a cup of very cold water until it reaches soft ball stage.

I find if I place a wire rack in the bottom of a the kitchen sink and fill it with a few inches of water, then place the hot saucepan or Dutch oven in the water,  that it will cool more quickly.

Use a pan with sides, such as a square cake pan, lined with buttered foil to pour the chocolate fudge recipe into."

--D.R. Fizgerald