Peanut butter fudge

Fudge. Who doesn't like fudge? Well, I know a few people, but they don't know what they're talking about, obviously. Creamy, chewy, delicious fudge, I could eat you any day of the week. I won't, but I could.

It's my brother's birthday today and I wanted to give him something fun. I bought him a Lego storage head (they're really cool, and stackable too!) and decided to fill it with fudge. Fudge has become somewhat of a running gag in our circle, ever since one of their friends watched their house and cats while my brother and his girlfriend were on holiday and hid about half a kilo of fudge in little bags all around the house. When we went on holiday to England two years ago we came home with more fudge than we could ever eat. This, plus the fact that he eats a lot of peanut butter and only one specific brand, made me decide on peanut butter fudge.

Now, I have made fudge before. I made some chocolate fudge, with sweetened condensed milk, and that was pretty good, but I did not know how to make peanut butter fudge. Tastespotting helped me in the direction of this recipe on Some Kitchen Stories, which I adapted slightly. I thought the mixture tasted too much of powdered sugar and could barely recognise the peanut butter, so I added some salt to bring out the taste some more. I think it succeeded in bringing out the peanut butter more and you can certainly recognise the flecks of it in the fudge, but they are still horrendously sweet. They are also very crumbly, but, looking at the original recipe and pictures, I think that's normal.

Peanut Butter Fudge

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup smooth peanut butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a pinch of salt, to taste

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Prepare a square dish with aluminium foil (the original recipe says an 8x8 inch dish, though bigger will simply mean thinner pieces. I actually lined a larger oven dish but was able to shape the mixture very well, so only 2 sides of the slab were actually connected to the dish.)

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the butter and peanut butter. Cover the top of the bowl with microwave-safe cling wrap and nuke on high (750 watt) for 2 minutes. Fold over the wrap and stir with a wooden spoon until combined, then replace the cling wrap and nuke it for another 2 minutes. It will be steaming hot, be careful!

Stir until the mixture is completely lump-free (though it will probably already be completely smooth) and add the vanilla extract. Start sifting in the powdered sugar and stir well. It will become increasingly more difficult to stir but keep at it!
When combined, taste (careful, it may still be hot), and add salt if needed. I added a large pinch because of the extreme sweetness, but if that's to your liking, then leave the salt out. Stir thoroughly when adding salt though, since it's already quite doughy, it might stick to one spot in the mixture and make for one rather unpleasant piece of candy.

Grab your prepared dish and spread out the mixture evenly. Place it in the refrigerator for at least one hour before cutting into squares.

Enjoy!